• 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


by  Ut 


THE    LIFE  OF  THE    SPIRIT    IN  THE    MOD- 
ERN   ENGLISH    POETS.     Crown  8vo, $1.75. 

SOCIAL    IDEALS    IN    ENGLISH    LETTERS. 
Crown  8vo,  $1.75. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK. 


SOCIAL  IDEALS 
IN  ENGLISH  LETTERS 


BY 


VIDA  D.  SCUDDER 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  LIFE  OF  THE  SPIRIT  IN  THE  MODERN 
ENGLISH  POETS" 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1898,  BY  VIDA  D.  SCUDDER 
ALL  RIGIITS  RESERVED 


TO   MY   MOTHER 

H.  L.  S. 

AND    MY   FRIEND 

L.  H.  S. 


CONTENTS 

PAQB 

FOREWORD 1 

PART  I. 
THE   ENGLAND   OF   OUR   FOREFATHERS. 

CHAPTER 

I.  WILLIAM  LANGLAND  AND  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  .        7 

II.   THE  UTOPIA  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE    ...  46 

III.  THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT       ....  80 

PART  II. 
THE   ENGLAND   OF   OUR   FATHERS. 

I.  OUTLINES 114 

II.  SOCIAL  PICTURES:  DICKENS  AND  THACKERAY  .     128 

III.  THE  AWAKENING  :  "  SAKTOR  RESARTUS  "   .        .  143 

IV.  THE  INDICTMENT 157 

V.  THE  NEW  INTUITION 175 

VI.   GEORGE  ELIOT  AND  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE  .     180 

VII.  A  GLIMPSE  OF  AMERICA 198 

VIII.  WHAT  TO  DO:  ACCORDING  TO  CARLYLE          .  .    212 

IX.  WHAT  TO  DO  :  ACCORDING  TO  RUSKIN        .        .  217 

X.   WHAT  TO  DO  :  ACCORDING  TO  ARNOLD  .        .  .    233 

XI.   TOWARD  DEMOCRACY 243 

XII.  TOWARD  AUTHORITY 261 

CONCLUSION. 

CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND     .....  276 

INDEX    .  .319 


SOCIAL  IDEALS  IN  ENGLISH 
LETTERS 


FOREWORD 

THIS  book  is  to  consider  English  literature  in 
its  social  aspect.  It  will  study  the  imaginative  ex- 
pression of  some  of  the  most  interesting  moments 
in  the  long  struggle  by  which  democracy  and  free- 
dom are  slowly  realizing  themselves,  and  the  earth 
is  becoming  in  substantial  sense  the  heritage  of  all 
the  children  of  men.  We  are  living  to-day  in  one 
of  the  most  dramatic  periods  of  that  great  struggle. 
Year  by  year  adds  new  episodes  to  its  history  both 
written  and  unwritten,  and  quickens  in  earnest 
minds  the  sense  of  the  special  responsibility  borne 
by  our  generation  toward  its  solution. 

To  allow  the  social  questions  which  preoccupy 
us  to  invade  even  our  enjoyment  of  poetry,  essays, 
and  novels  may  seem  uninviting  and  needless ; 
for  many  of  us  have  a  way  of  turning  to  books  as 
an  escape  from  life  and  its  sorrows  and  puzzles. 
Yet  if  we  are  to  dwell  with  pain  and  problem  in 
considering  the  social  bearing  of  some  representa- 
tive English  books,  we  are  to  dwell  with  beauty 
also.  Great  literature  is  always  the  record  of  some 
great  struggle  ;  and  it  is  wonderful  testimony  to 
life's  essential  blessedness  that,  no  matter  how 


2     SOCIAL  IDEALS  IN  ENGLISH  LETTERS 

agonizing  the  struggle,  it  becomes  a  source  of  un- 
dying joy  when  translated  into  art.  However 
strenuous  the  problems  of  life  may  be,  however 
dark  its  issues,  the  world  lingers  on  them  with  a 
pain  that  is  delight,  when  once  they  are  expressed 
by  a  noble  artist.  The  fatal  wrath  of  Achilles, 
the  tortures  of  Dante's  Francesca,  the  remorse  of 
Macbeth,  the  sorrow  of  Lear,  are  records  of  expe- 
riences supremely  terrible  ;  and  they  are  numbered 
among  the  chief  treasures  of  the  race. 

Therefore  we  need  not  shrink  from  watching,  in 
some  few  phases  of  our  literature,  the  expression 
of  social  life  with  its  anomalies,  and  social  ideals 
with  their  wistfulness,  or  even,  at  times,  of  social 
despair.  For  "  art  sees  as  God  sees/'  and  is 
therefore  always  calm,  blending  all  phases  of  fear 
and  strife  into  a  lovely  whole.  This  it  does,  not 
from  heartlessness,  but  from  its  recognition  of 
eternal  values,  and  also  from  that  mysterious  com- 
pulsion which  enables,  yes,  forces  it,  through  har- 
mony of  form,  to  subdue  all  discord  of  subject. 
And  so  it  is  good  to  look  at  the  questions  that 
beset  us,  at  the  wrongs  that  torment  us,  through 
their  reflection  in  art.  We  shall  not  be  hardened 
into  carelessness  by  so  looking.  The  better 
thought  of  our  generation,  signaled  as  it  is  by  the 
growth  of  a  great  compassion,  is  in  slight  danger 
of  indifference,  or  of  a3sthetic  frivolity.  Rather, 
we  need  to  preserve  our  recognition  of  true  values 
and  proportions,  our  real  as  distinguished  from  our 
morbid  delicacy  of  feeling,  —  in  a  word,  our  san- 
ity. This  larger  view,  this  purer  sense,  we  are  at 


FOREWORD  3 

least  helped  to  gain  by  looking  at  things  that 
grieve  and  distress  us,  not  only  directly,  but  as 
they  have  been  felt  and  rendered  through  noble 
art. 

In  earlier  times,  the  struggle  which  literature 
records  is  chiefly  individual.  We  see  men  subdu- 
ing the  earth,  facing  their  human  foes,  wrestling 
with  supernatural  terrors,  seeking  the  love  of  wo- 
men. This  is  the  aspect  of  literature  which  has 
interested  people  most ;  nor  will  it  ever  —  needless 
to  say  —  be  superseded.  Yet  as  time  goes  on  and 
the  race  grows  older,  another  aspect  becomes  more 
and  more  evident.  Literature  is  a  series  of  social 
documents.  It  shows  the  exceptional  individual 
contending  with  his  environment ;  it  also  shows, 
more  and  more  as  time  goes  on,  in  that  very  envi- 
ronment the  expression  of  a  larger  life.  The  in- 
dividual becomes  the  type.  At  first  he  is  the  type 
of  a  phase  of  character,  as  Hamlet  stands  for  all 
Hamlets  ;  later,  and  this  is  characteristic  of  the 
literature  of  our  own  day,  he  becomes  the  type  of 
a  class,  or  social  group.  The  epic,  the  drama,  and 
later  the  novel,  reveal  the  collective  experience  of 
the  nation  from  age  to  age.  The  lyric,  with  all 
its  intimacy,  gives  us  not  only  the  private  heart  of 
the  singer,  but  also  the  common  heart  of  his  peo- 
ple and  his  time.  When  the  fervor  of  living  has 
abated  a  little,  so  that  men  can  pause  to  consider 
life,  criticism  appears,  and  accents,  with  a  sharp- 
ness that  no  one  can  mistake,  the  characteristic 
qualities  and  defects  of  the  general  civilization 
around  it.  In  all  this  literature,  humanity  itself 


4     SOCIAL  IDEALS  IN  ENGLISH  LETTERS 

is  the  protagonist ;  and  its  great  fortunes,  spiritual 
and  material,  appeal  to  the  trained,  though  not  to 
the  untrained,  imagination  with  mighty  and  un- 
rivaled power. 

Moreover,  great  books  have  a  double  value. 
They  show  life  itself  under  various  phases,  and 
they  also  show  the  ideals  which  that  life  generates ; 
the  present,  and  that  higher  yet  unrealized  truth, 
which  the  present  ever  suggests,  toward  which  it 
ever  moves.  They  speak  to  us  with  "  the  prophetic 
soul  of  the  wide  world  dreaming  on  things  to 
come."  And  so,  rendering  alike  the  actual  and 
that  ideal  in  the  actual  which  spurs  to  the  future, 
they  lead  us  to  gain  a  sense  of  the  lines  of  progress 
to  be  gained  in  no  other  way.  We  get  absorbed 
in  the  mood  and  passion  of  the  moment.  But  lit- 
erature gives  us  mood  after  mood  of  the  humat 
race,  related,  succeeding,  advancing.  One  cannot 
watch  the  growth  of  conviction  in  any  line  with- 
out a  certain  sense  of  fatality,  a  consciousness  that, 
while  each  individual  thought  seems  to  play  in 
freedom,  like  each  bird  in  the  mysterious  migra- 
tions of  spring  and  autumn,  there  is  yet  an  inexo- 
rable impulse  carrying  onward  the  whole  flock  of 
thoughts  toward  a  distant  land.  Literature  makes 
us  feel  this  totality  of  impulse.  Discussion  helps 
to  form  faith,  action  helps  perhaps  still  more.  But 
while  in  confused  days  both  are  good,  it  is  also 
good  to  look  back,  and  watch  the  tendencies  mani- 
fest in  those  imaginative  men  who,  as  Wordsworth 
said,  rejoice  more  intensely  than  other  men  in  the 
spirit  of  life  that  is  in  them.  As  we  follow  from 


FOREWORD  5 

one  generation  to  another  the  dreamers  who  are 
the  truest  prophets,  we  shall  trace  the  gradual 
awakening  of  a  social  consciousness,  bringing  with 
it  the  perception  of  social  problems  and  the  crea- 
tion of  social  ideals  ;  and  in  this  consciousness  we 
may  find  a  continued  power  of  selection  and  of 
persistence  from  which  many  things  concerning  the 
future  may  be  inferred. 

This  splendid  witness  of  literature  to  the  organic 
character  of  human  experience  has  been  too  much 
ignored.  No  one  book  can  do  more  than  glance 
at  the  rich  subject.  And  any  book  which  tries  to 
do  even  as  much  as  this  must  practice  severe  self- 
restraint  in  its  choice  of  material.  If  it  wishes  to 
watch  the  social  aspects  of  the  literature  of  one 
country,  as  for  instance  of  England,  it  must  rig- 
idly resist  the  strong  temptation  to  draw  upon  the 
abundant  illustrations  and  contrasts  offered  by  the 
literatures  of  other  lands :  it  may  not  even  indulge 
in  more  than  an  occasional  glimpse  at  the  parallel 
growth  of  social  ideals,  a  growth  at  once  so  like 
and  so  unlike  that  of  England,  in  our  own  Amer- 
ica. It  must  pass  over  whole  periods  with  an  al- 
lusion, and  dismiss  whole  art-forms  undiscussed. 
And  yet  even  one  book  may  show  the  possibili- 
ties of  study.  It  may  catch  the  reflection  of  social 
conditions  and  experiences  at  certain  great  epochs ; 
it  may  signal  points  of  primary  importance  in  the 
gradual  self-realization  of  society  through  the  long 
centuries ;  and,  in  scrutinizing  the  literature  which 
lies  immediately  behind  our  generation,  it  may 
perhaps  even  help  the  more  direct  and  strenuous 


6     SOCIAL  IDEALS  IN  ENGLISH  LETTERS 

social  speculation  which  so  absorbs  us  in  these 
closing  years  of  the  century,  for  it  may  try  to  dis- 
cover the  trend  of  thought  tentatively  followed  by 
that  instinct  of  the  seeking  soul  which  will,  after 
all,  do  more  than  any  theories  of  the  political  econ- 
omists to  determine  the  social  forms  of  the  future. 


PART  I 

THE    ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 


CHAPTER   I 

WILLIAM    LANGLAND   AND   THE   MIDDLE   AGES 


DEMOCRACY  entered  Great  Britain  with  the 
Church  of  Christ.  A  primitive  people  is  always 
aristocratic  ;  and  "  Beowulf,"  our  earliest  English 
epic,  witnesses  as  vividly  as  the  Iliad,  and  in  much 
the  same  way,  to  the  exclusive  importance  of  the 
chieftains  in  a  half-savage  society.  In  this  pre- 
cious ancient  poem,  through  which  the  Teutonic 
race  sees  dimly  its  heroic  past,  a  village,  slightly 
mentioned,  lies  to  be  sure  somewhere  in  the  back- 
ground, but  eyes  are  fixed  on  noble  Heorot  Hall, 
gold-timbered,  fiend-ravaged,  where  the  heroes 
feast  and  brag.  In  battle,  the  common  people 
hardly  exist  even  to  be  slain ;  in  revel,  the  queen 
herself  is  cup-bearer,  for  no  vulgar  hand  may  min- 
ister to  the  princely  warriors.  Into  this  society, 
fiercely  respectful  toward  the  fighter  with  a  pedi- 
gree, contemptuous  toward  the  nameless  churl,  the 
chanting  monks  of  Augustine,  and  earlier  yet  the 
Celtic  missionaries  with  a  Christianity  of  more 
childlike  type,  introduced  a  new  ideal.  Instead 


8      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

of  a  social  growth  formed  naturally,  following  hu- 
man passion  and  instinct  along  the  line  of  least 
resistance,  men  gained  the  idea  of  a  society  shaped 
in  defiance  of  instinct,  and  in  obedience  to  a  higher 
power.  Laying  aside,  with  other  more  important 
matters,  their  princely  standards  and  activities, 
the  sons  of  the  warriors  rushed  into  the  monas- 
teries and  bowed  side  by  side  with  the  sons  of 
churl  and  serf,  not  only  before  the  altar  but  over 
the  furrow.  With  unspeakable  gentleness  and 
fervor,  Christianity  wrought  in  these  wild  natures 
a  social  revolution  as  amazing  as  the  spiritual,  and 
only  less  noted  because  assumed  as  a  natural  cor- 
ollary of  the  work  of  grace.  But  surely,  in  one 
generation,  to  turn  the  haughty  heroes,  breathing 
flame  against  their  foes,  into  peaceful  agricultural 
laborers  reclaiming  waste  lands,  was  not  least  of 
the  miracles  achieved  by  Holy  Church.  The  early 
annals  of  monasticism,  especially  the  ever-fresh 
and  winning  books  of  that  most  delightful  of 
authors,  the  Venerable  Bede,  give  us  frequent 
glimpses  of  the  new  social  attitude  which  the  new 
faith  swiftly  fostered.  Here,  for  instance,  is  the 
description  of  the  monk  Owini,  a  nobleman  of 
rank,  once  prime  minister  of  Queen  Etheldrid : 
"  As  the  fervor  of  his  faith  increased,  resolving  to 
renounce  the  world,  he  did  not  go  about  it  sloth- 
fully,  but  so  fully  forsook  the  things  of  this  world, 
that  quitting  all  he  had,  clad  in  a  plain  garment, 
and  carrying  an  axe  and  hatchet  in  his  hand,  he 
came  to  the  monastery  of  that  most  reverend  pre- 
late called  Lestingau,  denoting  that  he  did  not  go 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES       9 

to  the  monastery  to  live  idle,  as  some  do,  but  to 
labour,  which  he  also  confirmed  by  practise  ;  for 
as  he  was  less  capable  of  meditating  on  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  he  the  more  earnestly  applied  himself 
to  the  labour  of  his  hands."  l  Here,  again,  is  the 
story  of  the  cousin  of  the  great  Benedict  Biscop, 
the  holy  abbot  Easterwine,  in  which  Bede  lingers 
lovingly  on  each  detail  of  humility  and  gentle 
practical  usefulness :  "  He  was  a  man  of  noble 
birth  ;  but  he  did  not  make  that,  like  some  men, 
a  cause  of  boasting  and  despising  others,  but  a 
motive  for  exercising  nobility  of  mind  also,  as 
became  a  servant  of  the  Lord.  .  .  .  And  indeed, 
though  he  had  been  an  attendant  on  King  Egfrid, 
and  had  abandoned  his  temporal  vocation  and 
arms,  devoting  himself  to  spiritual  warfare,  he  re- 
mained so  humble  and  like  the  other  brethren  that 
he  took  pleasure  in  threshing  and  winnowing,  milk- 
ing the  ewes  and  cows,  and  employed  himself  in 
the  bake-house,  the  garden,  the  kitchen,  and  all 
the  other  labours  of  the  monastery,  with  readiness 
and  submission.  .  .  .  Oftentimes,  when  he  went 
forth  on  the  business  of  the  monastery,  if  he  found 
the  brethren  working,  he  would  join  them,  and 
work  with  them,  by  taking  the  plough-handle,  or 
handling  the  smith's  hammer,  or  using  the  win- 
nowing-machine,  or  anything  of  like  nature.  For 
he  was  a  young  man  of  great  strength  and  pleasant 
tone  of  voice,  of  a  kind  and  bountiful  disposition, 
and  fair  to  look  on."  2 

1  Bede,  Ecclesiastical  History,  book   iv.  ch.  v.  trans.,  Bohn'a 
Universal  Library. 

2  Bede,  Lives  of  the  Holy  Abbots. 


10      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

These  winsome  stories,  and  many  like  them, 
come  to  us  with  double  force  when  we  realize  that 
the  period  which  they  describe  is  not  one  in  which 
barbarism  had  been  fully  conquered.  Their  date 
is  that  seventh  century,  when  the  wild  paganism 
and  savage  impulses  of  our  forefathers  were 
wrestling,  with  result  still  uncertain,  against  the 
gentler  ideals  of  the  faith  of  Christ.  Out  of  this 
century,  which  gives  us  such  idyllic  pictures  of 
young  monasteries  crowded  with  humble  saints, 
come  also  the  dark  and  fearsome  dreams  of  North- 
ern heathendom,  —  "  Beowulf  "  and  the  "  Story  of 
the  Volsungs,"  —  mythic  tales,  full  of  monsters 
and  dragons  and  of  heroic  types  singularly  prime- 
val and  fierce. 

The  social  influence  of  the  Church  was  felt  in 
many  ways.  Much  that  she  found,  she  simply 
subdued  and  adopted.  The  strenuous  passions,  the 
wild  loyalty  of  comradeship  in  the  old  tribal  rela- 
tions, were  transmuted  into  a  range  of  feeling 
wider,  gentler,  more  subtle.  Of  sympathy,  for  in- 
stance, there  is  little  or  none  in  the  heathen  dreams 
of  Celt  or  Saxon ;  no  sooner  is  Christianity  intro- 
duced than  a  new  tenderness,  exquisitely  potent, 
a  sense  of  fellowship  with  all  living  things,  breathes 
like  a  strain  of  melody  through  the  harsh  tumult 
of  existence.  The  very  beasts  and  birds  are  in- 
cluded, as  they  were  to  be  later  by  St.  Francis, 
and  later  still  by  Burns,  in  this  sweet  democracy 
of  feeling.  The  story  of  the  sleek  otters  who  crept 
up  to  warm  the  feet  of  St.  Cuthbert,  chilled  by  his 
night-long  penance  of  standing  in  the  cold  surf,  is 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     11 

only  one  of  the  lovely  tales  which  attest  the  near- 
ness of  the  innocent  lives  of  the  old  monks,  new- 
born into  the  childhood  of  the  heavenly  kingdom, 
to  the  innocence  of  animal  life.  Visions  are 
again  and  again  vouchsafed  to  these  pure  souls, 
as  they  plough  their  fields  or  sow  their  gardens ; 
but  these  visions  concern  the  monks  themselves 
less  often  than  their  distant  friends,  to  whom  they 
are  always  near  in  spirit.  Nor  is  their  tenderness 
limited  to  their  comrades.  A  mystic  tie  binds  the 
old  saints  to  all  the  desolate,  and  their  ministry 
implies  a  constant  consciousness  of  the  poor  and 
humble.  Thus  St.  Columba  suspends  conversation 
to  rejoice  in  ecstatic  contemplation  of  the  ascent  to 
heaven  of  the  soul  of  an  old  blacksmith,  who,  hav- 
ing worked  hard  all  his  life,  is  now  borne  upward 
gently  by  a  choir  of  angels :  and  we  find  the  Saint 
constantly  aware  by  intuition  of  the  perils  of 
his  spiritual  children,  sailors  on  the  tempestuous 
Northern  seas. 

No  records,  indeed,  show  the  new  ideals  more 
vividly  than  the  life  of  St.  Columba,  as  told  by  his 
early  biographer,  Adamnan.  The  glorious  poet- 
saint,  most  engaging  figure  of  Celtic  tradition, 
when  he  had  renounced  the  warlike  frenzy  of  his 
youth  and  become  a  leader  in  the  creative  arts  of 
peace,  converted  men  to  practical  usefulness  as 
well  as  to  supernatural  hopes.  Through  the  lovely 
legends  of  his  power  over  the  forces  of  nature,  we 
see  gleaming  the  no  less  lovely  truth,  that  he  irri- 
gated the  land  and  developed  the  culture  of  fruit- 
trees.  Settled  on  his  barren  island  of  lona,  from 


12     THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

which  spiritual  light  streamed  out  over  all  that 
barbarian  world,  he  formed  with  his  monks  an 
agricultural  community  of  which  we  have  idyllic 
pictures.  "His  entire  life,"  says  Montalembert, 
"  bears  the  marks  of  his  ardent  sympathy  for  the 
laborers  in  the  fields.  From  the  time  of  his 
early  travels  as  a  young  man  in  Ireland,  when 
he  furnished  the  ploughmen  with  ploughshares, 
and  had  the  young  men  trained  to  the  trade  of 
blacksmith,  up  to  the  days  of  his  old  age,  when 
he  could  only  follow  from  far  off  the  labor  of  his 
monks,  his  paternal  tenderness  never  ceased  to 
exercise  on  their  account  its  salutary  and  bene- 
ficent influence.  Seated  in  a  little  wooden  hut 
which  answered  the  purpose  of  a  cell,  he  inter- 
rupted his  studies  and  put  down  his  pen,  to  bless 
the  monks  as  they  came  back  from  the  fields,  the 
pastures,  or  the  barns.  The  younger  brethren, 
after  having  milked  the  cows  of  the  community, 
knelt  down  with  their  pails  full  of  new  milk,  to 
receive  from  a  distance  the  abbot's  blessing,  some- 
times accompanied  by  an  exhortation  useful  to 
their  souls." l  The  death  of  the  old  saint  was  har- 
monious with  his  life.  In  the  end  of  May,  he  was 
drawn,  by  oxen  harnessed  to  a  rude  cart,  to  the 
western  side  of  the  island,  where  his  monks  were 
working  in  the  fertile  fields.  Standing  in  his 
cart,  he  tenderly  blessed  them  and  their  island 
home.  On  the  way  back,  he  met,  embraced,  and 
blessed  his  old  white  horse,  which  carried  the 
milk  from  the  dairy.  His  last  message  sent  to  his 
1  Montalembert,  The  Monks  of  the  West,  book  ix.  ch.  vi. 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     13 

spiritual  children  was  in  the  words:  "Let  peace 
and  charity,  a  charity  mutual  and  sincere,  reign 
always  among  you." 

One  sees  from  such  stories  the  fervor  with  which 
the  fraternal  ideal  of  peace,  love,  and  labor  sought 
to  supplant  the  wild  glory  of  combat  and  destruc- 
tion. Never  is  the  central  purpose  of  Christianity 
so  manifest  as  when  we  see  the  faith  in  its  purity, 
not  yet  contaminated  from  within,  contending  with 
a  dark  barbarism  like  that  of  our  forefathers.  Its 
influence,  when  thus  seen,  is  clearly  toward  social 
equality,  toward  simplification  of  desires,  toward 
common,  active,  loving  fellowship  in  the  produc- 
tive arts  of  peace.  "  Brotherhood  "  is  a  term  of 
real  and  normal  meaning  in  the  old  monastic  com- 
munities, and  the  heathen  attitude  which  set  Na- 
ture at  defiance  as  a  malign  and  hostile  power  is 
replaced  by  a  spirit  of  warm  and  tranquil  friend- 
liness toward  the  whole  creation.  A  restored  har- 
mony is  established  between  man  and  the  fertile 
earth,  between  man  and  his  fellow-men. 

II 

Only  for  brief  periods,  can  we  ever  trace  the 
influence  of  an  untainted  Christianity.  As  the 
Church  conquers,  she  falls,  and  no  sooner  is  the 
world  at  her  feet  than  it  is  in  her  heart  also.  Al- 
ready, in  the  naive  records  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Church,  we  find  the  Roman  passion  for  dominion 
and  administration  reaching  out  from  Italy  to  the 
British  Isles,  and  prevailing,  not  without  a  dra- 
matic struggle,  over  the  evangelical  simplicity  and 


14      THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

slightly  organized  consecration  of  the  native  Chris- 
tians, Celtic  and  Saxon.  One  of  the  first  results 
of  this  victory  was  a  loss  of  that  social  ideal  of 
Christian  poverty  and  simplicity  which  is  always 
antagonistic  to  ecclesiastical  aggrandizement.  The 
monasteries  soon  degenerated.  They  became  grasp- 
ing and  tyrannical  centres  of  the  material  posses- 
sions of  the  Church,  the  frequent  resorts  of  lazi- 
ness, luxury,  and  ambition.  Even  the  ninth  cen- 
tury saw  them  past  the  pure  devotion  of  their 
prime,  and  in  the  tenth  they  had  sunk  low.  Yet 
at  their  worst  they  continued  to  present  an  exam- 
ple of  common  life  for  common  ends,  and  at  their 
best  they  preserved,  in  ideal  at  least,  through  the 
feudal  period  with  its  sharp  class-articulations,  the 
tradition  of  a  pure  Christian  communism,  vowed 
to  democratic  fellowship  and  to  personal  poverty. 
Every  now  and  then,  a  renewed  religious  impulse 
would  restore  the  ancient  standards  of  unworld- 
liness :  and  monasticism  would  recall  once  more 
for  a  time  the  simple  beauty  of  the  community  life 
of  the  first  disciples. 

The  most  important  of  such  revivals  was  unques<- 
tionably  the  Franciscan  movement  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  Then  lived  St.  Francis,  and  wooed  and 
won  the  Lady  Poverty  for  his  spiritual  bride.  No 
wonder  if  his  lovely  life,  and  that  of  his  immediate 
followers,  held  an  inspiration  that  spread  rapidly 
over  the  whole  of  Europe.  A  pure  and  vital  part 
of  this  inspiration  was  an  impassioned  revival  of 
the  social  with  the  spiritual  fervors  of  Christianity. 
It  was  the  wise  provision  of  the  saint  of  Assisi, 


LAN  GLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES    15 

whom  one  suspects  to  have  had  more  common 
sense  than  the  world  credits  him  with,  that  the 
poverty  of  his  brethren  was  to  be  a  condition,  not 
of  sentimental  indolence,  but  of  hard  self-support- 
ing toil.  He  not  only  built  a  church  with  his  own 
hands  as  first  sign  of  his  conversion,  he  set  his 
spiritual  children  at  real  manual  work,  from  cook- 
ing to  ploughing.  Like  the  barbarian  warriors  of 
an  earlier  age,  the  young  nobles  and  merchant 
princes  of  Italy  tested  their  religious  consecration 
by  their  readiness  for  useful  menial  tasks.  "  I 
worked  with  my  hands,"  says  the  precious,  au- 
thentic will  of  St.  Francis,  "  and  I  wish  to  con- 
tinue so  to  do,  and  I  wish  that  all  the  other  bro- 
thers should  work  at  some  honest  trade.  Let  those 
who  have  none  learn  one,  not  in  order  that  they 
may  be  paid  wages  for  their  work,  but  to  set  a  good 
example  and  avoid  laziness.  And  when  people 
will  not  pay  us  for  our  work,  then  let  us  have  re- 
course to  the  table  of  the  Lord,  begging  alms  from 
door  to  door."1 

Soon,  this  sane  and  protecting  provision  slipped 
out  of  the  Franciscan  rule,  and  the  wholesomeness 
of  the  movement,  which  had  started  as  a  return  to 
nature  and  simplicity  as  well  as  to  God,  was  lost 
in  wild  excesses.  No  similar  revival  followed, 
and  the  degeneration  of  monastic  life  seemed  com- 
plete and  final.  By  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
mendicant  orders,  which  had  adopted  the  last  sug- 
gestion of  St.  Francis  in  the  clause  just  quoted, 
without  marking  its  restrictions,  had  become  an 
1  Sabatier,  Life  of  S.  Francis,  ch.  xx. 


16      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

unmitigated  nuisance.  Their  wandering  throngs 
infested  Europe  with  pauper  laziness  masquerad- 
ing as  sanctity,  and  formed  perhaps  the  largest 
constituent  in  that  wide-spread  anarchy  and  law- 
lessness which  not  even  feudalism  could  suppress. 

For  the  later  Middle  Ages  faced  sharp  contrasts. 
They  possessed  a  social  structure  immutably  fixed, 
but  through  this  structure  roamed  hosts  of  ne'er- 
do-weels,  setting  at  defiance  its  restrictions,  and 
rejecting  privileges  only  to  prey  upon  the  privi- 
leged. This  constant  sight  was  probably  one  rea- 
son why  mediaeval  thought  embodies  a  deep  regard 
for  property  and  class  distinctions  ;  for  nothing 
so  increases  the  self-satisfaction  of  privilege  as  the 
presence  of  misery  unwilling  to  work.  Be  the 
cause  what  it  may,  no  more  aristocratic  literature 
exists  than  that  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Romances 
of  chivalry  and  legends  of  the  saints  agree  in  show- 
ing as  fine  a  disregard  of  the  commons  as  do  the 
old  epics  of  heathendom.  Men  turned  indeed  to 
humble  life  for  broad  jest  and  merry  tale,  but 
noble  sentiments  apparently  stirred  in  knightly 
breasts  alone,  and  only  fine  ladies  had  fine  man- 
ners. Chaucer  is  the  only  poet  who  makes  com- 
mon folk  live  with  a  substantial  personal  existence ; 
and  even  Chaucer  loves  his  Wife  of  Bath,  his 
Reeve  and  Miller  and  Ploughman,  with  the  love  of 
an  artist  rather  than  of  a  brother.  Nor  would  his 
characters  have  resented  his  attitude.  They  ac- 
cepted their  inferior  roles  meekly ;  parts  of  a  feu- 
dal system  sure  of  its  own  finality,  and  little  likely 
to  foster  social  discontent.  From  the  eleventh 


LANGLAND  AND  THE  MIDDLE  AGES    17 

through  the  sixteenth  century,  the  wide  world  of 
story-telling  is  uninvaded  by  questioning  as  to  the 
divine  right  of  the  things  that  be. 

ill 

Yet  through  the  seeming  solidity  of  mediaeval 
life  ran  from  the  first  waves  and  ripples  of  revolt. 
They  proceeded  in  largo  measure  from  the  intellec- 
tual proletariat,  the  students,  lay  and  cleric,  of  the 
young  universities.  These  students  formed  a  rov- 
ing Bohemian  class,  effervescent,  impudent,  full  of 
aversion  to  respectability  and  boredom.  They 
were  called  "  Goliards,"  after  their  absurd  imagi- 
nary head,  a  Bishop  Golias.  Their  jolly  songs, 
written  in  a  jumble  of  French  and  Latin,  dashed 
in  frolicsome  and  bitter  foam  against  the  firm  au- 
thorities of  Church  and  State.  It  is  curious  to  pore 
over  these  Goliardic  lyrics  in  their  dead  languages, 
and  through  their  obsolete  slang  to  hear  mockery  as 
fresh  and  social  satire  as  keen  as  any  socialist  stu- 
dent in  Germany  or  France  could  troll  out  to-day. 
Sometimes  the  followers  of  the  good  Bishop  wrote 
in  prose,  and  clever,  scathing  prose  it  could  be,  as 
a  quotation  from  one  of  their  parodies  will  prove : 

"  The  beginning  of  the  holy  gospel  according  to 
Marks  of  silver  :  At  that  time  the  Pope  said  to 
the  Romans  :  '  When  the  son  of  man  shall  come  to 
the  seat  of  our  majesty,  first  say,  Friend,  for  what 
hast  thou  come?  But  if  he  should  persevere  in 
knocking  without  giving  you  anything,  cast  him 
into  utter  darkness.'  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  a 
certain  clerk  came  to  the  court  of  the  lord  the 


18      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Pope,  and  cried  out,  saying,  '  Have  pity  on  me  at 
least,  you  doorkeepers  of  the  Pope,  for  the  hand 
of  poverty  has  touched  me.  For  I  am  needy  and 
poor,  and  therefore  I  seek  your  assistance  in  my 
calamity  and  misery.'  But  they  hearing  this  were 
highly  indignant,  and  said  to  him  :  '  Friend,  thy 
poverty  be  with  thee  in  perdition  ;  get  thee  back- 
ward, Satan,  for  thou  dost  not  savour  of  those  things 
which  have  the  savour  of  money.  Verily,  verily, 
I  say  unto  thee,  Thou  shalt  not  enter  into  the  joy 
of  thy  lord,  until  thou  shalt  have  given  thy  last 
farthing.' 

"  Then  the  poor  man  went  away,  and  sold  his 
cloak  and  his  gown,  and  all  that  he  had,  and  gave 
it  to  the  cardinals,  and  to  the  doorkeepers,  and  to 
the  chamberlains.  But  they  said,  'And  what  is 
this  among  so  many  ?  '  And  they  cast  him  out  of 
the  gates,  and  going  out  he  wept  bitterly,  and  was 
without  consolation.  After  him  there  came  to  the 
court  a  certain  clerk  who  was  rich,  and  gross,  and 
fat,  and  large,  and  who  in  a  tumult  had  committed 
manslaughter.  He  gave  first  to  the  doorkeeper, 
secondly  to  the  chamberlain,  third  to  the  cardinals. 
But  they  judged  among  themselves  that  they  were 
to  receive  more. 

"  Then  the  lord  the  Pope,  hearing  that  the  cardi- 
nals and  the  officials  had  received  many  gifts  from 
the  clerk,  became  very  sick  unto  death.  But  the 
rich  man  sent  him  an  electuary  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver, and  he  was  immediately  made  whole.  Then 
the  lord  the  Pope  called  before  him  the  cardinals 
and  officials,  and  said  to  them,  '  Brethren,  see  that 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     19 

no  one  deceive  you  with  vain  words.  For  I  give 
you  an  example,  that,  as  I  take,  so  take  ye  also.'  " l 
The  Goliardic  literature  was  mostly  inspired  by 
mischief.  It  expressed  the  light  and  reckless  mood 
of  Bohemia,  a  mood  always  present,  never  pro- 
foundly operative.  Of  weightier  significance,  as 
interpreting  the  mind  of  the  whole  people,  were 
the  great  animal  epics,  produced  chiefly  in  the 
twelfth  century.  These  immense  anonymous  satir- 
ical works  gathered  as  unobtrusively  as  clouds  in 
the  clear  mediaeval  air.  The  most  comprehensive 
of  them,  "  Reynard  the  Fox,"  veiled  audacious  and 
sweeping  social  criticism  under  its  entertaining 
allegory.  The  different  feudal  personages  or 
classes  appear  under  the  guise  of  animals :  Noble 
the  Lion-king,  always  mentioned  with  respect; 
Isengrin  the  baron-wolf,  grim  as  his  name ;  Rey- 
nard the  fox,  in  friar's  habit.  Among  these  sym- 
bolic beasts,  no  active  role  is  assigned  to  the  peo- 
ple. They  come  upon  the  stage  as  the  fat  and 
innocent  geese,  whom  Reynard  always  pursues, 
and  to  whom  on  one  occasion  he  addresses,  with 
sanctimonious  whine,  the  touching  words :  "  God 
is  my  witness  how  deeply  I  long  after  you  all  in 
my  bowels."  But,  if  the  people  are  seldom  on  the 
stage,  the  whole  enormous  poem  is  written  from 
their  point  of  view.  It  is  good-humored  and  ac- 
quiescent ;  but  it  reveals  with  relentless  mockery 
the  double  oppression  suffered  by  the  poor  at  the 
hands  of  the  Church  and  the  nobles. 

1  Thomas  Wright,  History  of  Caricature  and  Grotesque,  ch.  x. 
p.  172. 


20      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Neither  the  Goliardic  poetry  nor  the  animal 
epics  were  of  high  importance  as  literary  forms. 
In  the  vast  meanderings  of  mediaeval  imagination, 
they  disappear  from  sight.  Moreover  they  were 
not  written  in  English,  nor  as  a  rule  did  they  origi- 
nate in  England.  They  serve  simply  to  suggest 
that  even  under  the  most  rigid  social  surface  rest- 
less impulses  are  sure  to  be  at  work. 

IV 

Such  impulses,  in  England  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, gathered  into  a  wide-spread  mood  of  protest. 
Times  were  dark,  conditions  bad.  The  Middle 
Ages  were  dying.  A  brief  industrial  prosperity, 
consequent  on  the  Black  Death  and  the  French 
wars,  had  quickened  the  intelligence  of  the  Eng- 
lish working  -  classes  ;  harsh  and  unjust  statutes 
were  awakening  them  to  a  new  class-consciousness, 
and  to  deep  indignation  against  industrial  wrongs. 
Out  of  a  great  darkness  springs  the  first  self- 
expression  of  the  people ;  and  the  social  literature 
of  England  begins.  A  fervid,  mournful,  wonder- 
ful book  inaugurates  it :  "  The  Vision  of  Piers  the 
Plowman."  Of  the  author  we  know  little.  Even 
his  name  is  partly  matter  of  conjecture,  and  it  is 
rather  from  convenience  than  from  certainty  that 
the  critics  agree  to  call  him  William  Langland. 
His  personality  evades  us  in  the  leisurely  stretches 
of  his  great  work.  Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well ;  for 
the  book  is  not  the  voice  of  one,  but  of  many,  of  a 
mighty  throng ;  it  is  the  voice  of  the  people,  articu- 
late at  last.  Their  joys  and  their  sorrows  speak 


LANGLAND  AND  THE  MIDDLE  AGES     21 

through  it ;  their  perplexed  brooding  over  life's 
inequalities,  their  large  charity,  breaking  now  and 
again  into  exceeding  bitter  cry.  Its  burden  is  one 
which  we  often  think  the  prerogative  of  our  own 
age,  —  the  investiture  of  labor  with  a  religious  sig-  ' 
nificance,  the  glorification  of  poverty,  the  conscious,  v 
unanswerable,  piteous  plea  for  the  brotherhood  of 
man.  All  this  it  uplifts  into  its  Christianity,  a 
faith  mystic  in  fervor  and  simplicity,  unrelated  to 
ecclesiasticism  or  to  temporary  forms.  "For  our 
joy  and  our  healing,"  says  Langland,  "  Jesus 
Christ  of  heaven,  in  a  poor  man's  apparel,  pursueth 
us  ever,  and  looketh  on  us  in  their  likeness,  and 
that  with  lovely  cheer." 

Probably  no  book  has  ever  more  deeply  stirred 
the  heart  and  soul  of  the  generation  for  which  it 
was  written,  or  won  for  the  time  being  a  more  wide- 
spread fame.  The  merry  charm  of  Chaucer's 
"  Canterbury  Tales  "  afforded  infinite  delectation 
to  a  reading  public  of  Church  and  clerkdom.  But 
it  is  one  thing  to  reach  the  public,  quite  another  to 
reach  the  people ;  and  the  more  difficult  achieve- 
ment was  Langland' s.  His  grave  verse  went 
straight  to  the  heart  of  the  still  Teutonic  race, 
indifferent  to  the  facile  French  lilts  of  Chaucer. 
Serfs  and  laborers,  seemingly  inaccessible  to  influ- 
ences of  culture,  as  they  staggered  along  under 
their  heavy  loads,  eagerly  welcomed  the  Visions 
of  Piers  the  Plowman,  of  Do  Well,  Do  Better, 
and  Do  Best.  They  heard,  pondered,  and  repeated, 
till  they  realized  that  their  souls  had  found  utter- 
ance at  last.  The  central  version  of  the  great 


22      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

poem  —  for  the  author  rewrote  it  three  times  — 
antedated  by  only  two  or  three  years  the  Pea- 
sants' Revolt  under  Wat  Tyler  and  John  Ball. 
This  was  the  first  largely  significant  prophecy  in 
England  of  a  distinct  industrial  movement.  Its 
inspiration  was  no  gentle  Christian  idealism,  such 
as  stirred  the  followers  of  St.  Francis,  but  a  spirit 
of  fierce  rebellion,  flinging  itself  with  awakened 
intelligence  and  destructive  ardor  against  estab- 
lished law.  The  first  note  of  the  social  revolution 
is  heard  in  its  confused  echoes.  No  one  can  trace 
the  thrilling  story  of  its  hope  and  passions,  and  fail 
to  see  how  potent  had  been  the  poem  of  Langland 
in  arousing  and  shaping  its  ideals.  Phrases  from 
the  poem  were  used  as  watchwords  in  the  uprising ; 
more  than  this,  the  central  personage,  the  intensely 
conceived  Piers  the  Plowman,  became  a  spirit- 
ual presence  to  the  laboring  classes  of  England. 
In  those  days  before  telegram  or  press,  association 
was  difficult;  this  poem,  quietly  passing  from  lip 
to  lip,  helped  bind  together  the  scattered  and  voice- 
less workingmen  of  the  eastern  counties  with  a 
new  sense  of  fellowship.  Langland  was  thus  a 
direct  power,  as  few  poets  have  ever  been,  upon  an 
awakening  national  life. 

The  revolt  failed.  The  class-struggle,  of  which 
it  was  one  of  the  first  and  most  picturesque  ex- 
pressions, was  doomed  to  fail,  whenever  resumed, 
for  many  a  century.  Times  passed,  conditions 
changed.  The  poem  of  Langland  was  forgotten. 
Nor  was  any  other  destiny  possible  to  it.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  Langland  rejected  all 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     23 

elements  of  the  common  life  offered  from  above, 
from  culture,  learning,  knighthood.  His  "  Vis- 
ions "  are  uncouth,  primitive,  amorphous ;  redo- 
lent of  the  soil,  but  heavy  with  it  as  well.  He 
wrote  in  a  revival  of  the  old  alliterative  metre  dear 
to  his  Saxon  forefathers ;  and  the  movement  of  his 
verses  is  that  of  the  laborer  in  the  field,  not  that  of 
the  lady  in  the  dance :  — 

"  Duke  of  this  dim  place,  anon  undo  the  gates, 
That  Christ  may  comen  in,  the  kinge's  son  of  heaven." 

It  was  a  noble  metre ;  it  had  held  sway  over  Eng- 
lish poetry  for  six  hundred  years,  —  a  far  longer 
reign  than  that  of  the  heroic  blank  verse,  its  upstart 
successor.  Splendid  passions  had  found  expres- 
sion in  its  surging,  swaying  lines.  Yet  when  Lang- 
land  chose  it  for  his  vehicle  it  was  already  doomed. 
Its  grave  inward  music,  its  slow  unrelieved  majesty, 
were  of  pure  Teuton  strain.  They  could  not  sat- 
isfy the  community  into  which  was  gradually  filter- 
ing from  above  a  new  element  and  a  new  spirit. 
For  the  Norman  knew  what  the  Anglo-Saxon  had 
never  imagined,  —  that  existence  could  be  amusing. 
England  was  awakening  to  the  discovery.  She 
craved  the  Frenchman's  wit  and  romance,  his  in- 
stinct for  grace  and  ease,  his  courtly  emphasis 
on  manners  as  a  good  in  themselves,  apart  from 
morals.  What  she  craved,  she  gained.  "The 
Canterbury  Tales "  are  of  the  same  half -century 
as  "  The  Vision  "  of  Langland ;  and  still  the  way- 
faring man  may  rejoice  in  their  fresh  romance  and 
bewitching  melody,  while  the  solemn  measures  of 
Chaucer's  brother-poet  chant  to  the  scholar  and 


24      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

the  seeker  alone.  Art  knows  no  classes ;  and  the 
self-expression  of  a  class,  though  that  class  be 
the  very  heart  of  the  nation,  cannot  be  immortal. 
This  is  the  book  of  the  people ;  and  the  people, 
even  when  thinking,  feeling,  seeing  aright,  is  yet 
unable,  except  by  occasional  chance,  to  find  the 
inevitable  word.  The  burden  of  the  popular  heart 
remains  forever  undelivered.  This  book  is  like  all 
others  that  seek  to  give  it.  Sharing  the  people's 
sorrows,  it  shares  also  their  fate :  it  is  forgotten. 

Yet  despite  uncouthness,  no  sturdy  lover  of  poe- 
try and  humanity  can  afford  to  ignore  the  old 
book.  It  may  not  be  literature,  for  it  lacks  the 
selective  and  controlling  instinct  of  art,  but  it  is 
full  to  overflowing  of  the  stuff  from  which  liter- 
ature is  made.  Langland  has  the  heart  of  the 
poet,  and  fervent  imaginative  conceptions  struggle 
through  his  awkward  form.  If  we  have  patience 
with  him,  there  emerges  slowly  to  our  ken  a  tem- 
perament rare  and  full  of  interest.  Dreamer  and 
visionary  like  most  of  the  men  of  his  time,  he  al- 
most alone  among  mediaeval  authors  dreamed  the 
dreams  neither  of  knight  nor  monk,  but  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  the  people  are  never  far  from  the  salu- 
tary neighborhood  of  the  actual.  At  times  his 
solemn  spiritual  symbols  suggest  the  lovely  work 
of  Giotto;  at  others,  he  shows  us  pictures  gro- 
tesquely concrete  as  Teniers  ever  painted.  He  is 
both  mystic  and  realist;  for  his  mysticism  is  not 
of  the  Celtic  type,  nurtured  on  fantastic  shadows, 
far  less  of  that  Oriental  type  which  creates  around 
itself  a  void.  It  is  instinct  with  the  vigorous  sin- 


LAN  GLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     25 

cerity  of  the  Teuton,  observes  without  illusion  or 
glamour  the  homeliest  facts,  yet  charges  those  facts 
with  a  vision-like  solemnity,  and  uplifts  them  into 
enduring  significance. 

One  questions  whether  Langland  need  have 
failed  as  an  artist  had  he  lived  when  prose  was 
developed  as  a  literary  form ;  for  his  work  has  more 
in  common  with  prose  than  with  poetry.  Swift  and 
Carlyle  would  have  handled  their  material  awk- 
wardly enough  had  the  exigencies  of  their  times 
made  them  write  in  verse ;  and  it  is  with  such  men 
as  these  that  our  bewildered  spirit  of  the  four- 
teenth century  must  be  placed.  His  massiveness 
of  thought,  the  satiric  bent  of  his  genius,  his  large, 
sad  interest  in  the  wider  conditions  of  humanity, 
bring  him  into  their  ranks  and  separate  him  from 
the  children  of  melodious  joy.  To  put  Langland 
beside  Chaucer  is  to  put  Carlyle  beside  Tennyson. 
Indeed,  Langland  curiously  resembles  Carlyle.  So 
striking  is  the  likeness  that  one  could  almost  be- 
lieve the  stern  Scotch  prophet  to  have  heard  and 
echoed  the  strain  dropped  centuries  before  by  the 
sad  lips  of  the  mediaeval  sage.  Each  in  his  day 
paused,  questioning,  at  a  turning  of  the  ways.  As 
Langland  stood  between  England  Catholic  and 
feudal  and  England  Protestant  and  commercial, 
so  Carlyle,  five  centuries  later,  stood  between  the 
individualistic  period  of  democracy  and  another 
order,  which  we  as  yet  hardly  dare  to  formulate, 
but  toward  which  we  surely  move.  Both  Carlyle 
and  Langland  were  at  once  conservative  and  radi- 
cal ;  each,  longing  for  peace,  became  a  destructive 


26      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

power ;  the  work  of  each  was  deeply  prophetic, 
and  reached  out  among  forces  and  tendencies 
which  the  seers  themselves  were  able  only  dimly  to 
understand.  They  were  two  voices  crying  aloud 
in  two  desert  centuries  :  "  Prepare  ye  the  way  of 
the  Lord  ;  make  his  paths  straight ;  "  "  make 
straight  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our  God." 

The  two  authors  share  the  impulse  to  flash  their 
truth  on  the  world,  not  as  argument  but  as  pic- 
ture; but  the  figures  of  speech  of  the  modern 
world  were  the  visions  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
what  Carlyle  saw  as  metaphor,  Langland  saw  as 
fact.  His  work  is  a  series  of  symbolic  dreams. 
Only  the  valiant  lover  of  books  can  thoroughly 
explore  the  wide  wilderness  of  allegory  in  which 
wanders  this  brooding  soul ;  but  any  lover  of  life 
can  discover  and  follow  the  central  thread  of  story 
which  is  the  clue  to  his  social  and  spiritual  faith. 

Rightly  read,  the  book  is  a  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  " 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  chief  symbol,  con- 
stantly appearing  in  its  mazes,  embodies  the  un- 
daunted quest  for  truth.  But  to  set  "  The  Vision 
of  Piers  Plowman  "  beside  the  beautiful  classic  of 
Bunyan,  also  a  vision,  is  to  feel  the  lapse  of  gen- 
erations, and  to  recognize  a  revolution  in  ideas. 
The  accent  of  the  great  Puritan  book  is  intensely 
individualistic;  wife,  children,  neighbors,  society 
are  forgotten  and  deserted  by  the  pilgrim  in  the 
absorbing  search  for  personal  salvation.  In  the 
Catholic  pilgrimage,  on  the  contrary,  the  accent 
is  social.  It  is  salvation  for  all  men,  not  only  in 
heaven  hereafter,  but  on  earth  as  in  heaven,  which 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES    27 

the  dreamer  urgently,  plaintively  seeks.  The  prota- 
gonist of  the  poem  is  no  projection  of  his  private 
consciousness,  no  individual ;  but  the  Working- 
People,  embodied  in  the  sturdy  figure  of  Piers  the 
Plowman,  the  Laborer  appearing  for  the  first  time 
upon  the  world's  stage,  not  as  buffoon,  but  as  hero. 
Piers  is  the  representative  of  the  agricultural  class 
on  whom  the  welfare  of  England  rested.  This 
"  Christian  "  has  for  his  aim  no  less  a  task  than 
the  organization  of  society  in  accordance  with  the 
will  of  God ;  and  he  does  not  rest  till  he  leads  all 
classes  after  him  in  the  pilgrimage  to  the  far  city 
of  truth.  None  of  the  Goliardic  poetry  with  its 
clever  gibes,  none  of  the  satirical  animal  epics,  hold 
so  subversive  a  suggestion  as  this  reverent  and  con- 
servative poem,  which  in  the  ages  of  dominant 
feudalism  presents  the  workingman  as  heart  and 
centre  of  the  social  order. 


Let  us  follow  the  story  of  the  Plowman.  He 
does  not  appear  till  men  are  ready  to  receive  him ; 
when  he  comes,  it  is  to  find  a  penitent  world.  In 
a  "  field  full  of  folk  "  the  Dreamer  sees  assembled 
a  motley  throng :  knights,  merchants,  friars,  min- 
strels, beggars,  pilgrims,  weavers,  tailors,  and  other 
craftsmen,  and  cooks  crying  "  Hot  pies,  hot !  go 
dine,  go  dine !  "  All  these  people  are  listening  to 
very  queer  sermons  preached  to  them  by  Reason 
and  Repentance ;  and  strange  to  say,  the  whole 
assembly  is  converted.  Even  the  Seven  Deadly 
Sins,  so  optimistic  is  our  writer,  are  conscience- 


28     THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

stricken  and  seek  to  be  shriven.  Repentance,  who 
will  place  no  limits  to  the  Divine  Forgiveness, 
prays  for  them  in  words  of  quaint  and  touching 
beauty,  his  tender  pleading  interspersed  by  the 
cadenced  pathos  of  Latin  chants  from  Holy  Writ ; 
and  at  the  end  Hope  blows  a  horn  with  high,  sweet 
note.  "  Bead  quorum  remissa3  sunt  iniquitates," 
while  all  the  saints  in  heaven  sing  at  once  the 
praises  of  the  mercy  of  God.  And  all  the  sinners, 
crying  for  grace,  make  vow  of  pilgrimage,  —  a 
strange,  new  pilgrimage,  neither  to  Canterbury 
nor  Walsingham,  nor  Jerusalem  nor  even  Rome ; 
a  pilgrimage  to  truth. 

"  A  thousand  of  men  then  thronged  together 
Cried  upward  to  Christ  and  His  clean  Mother 
To  have  grace  to  go  with  them  Truth  to  seek." 1 

But  the  Middle  Ages  are  not  used  to  this  pilgrim- 
age, despite  their  hosts  of  holy  places  ;  and  no  one 
knows  the  way.  The  pilgrims  "  bluster  forth  as 
beasts  over  banks  and  hills,"  wandering  distraught 
and  unguided.  At  last  they  meet  a  Palmer,  capitally 
described,  plastered  all  over  with  holy  signs.  He 
has  been  in  Ermonye  and  Alexandria,  as  you  may 
see  by  the  shells  sitting  on  his  hat ;  he  has  walked 
full  wide  in  wet  and  dry,  seeking  God's  saints  for 
his  soul's  health.  The  company  eagerly  ask  guid- 
ance from  him ;  does  he  know  a  "  Corsaint "  men 
call  Truth  ?  Can  he  tell  them  the  way  where  that 
wight  dwells  ?  But  no !  The  Palmer  stares  at  them 
in  surprise.  Nay  —  so  God  him  help  —  he  saw 
never  palmer  with  pike  or  staff  ask  after  him  ever, 
1  B  Text,  Passus  V.  L  518. 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES    29 

till  now,  in  this  place.  The  pilgrim  company  stands 
irresolute  and  bewildered  ;  when  suddenly  a  rough 
and  cheery  voice  is  heard.  It  is  the  voice  of  Piers 
the  Plowman.  He  comes  in  with  real  dramatic 
effect,  and  his  honest  accents  are  excellently  given. 
"  Peter  !  "  says  he,  "  I  know  Truth  as  well  as  a  clerk 
does  his  book.  I  have  been  his  follower  these  fifty 
winters.  I  have  sowed  his  seed  and  driven  his 
beasts.  I  dig  and  I  delve.  I  do  whatever  Truth 
tells  me  ;  sometimes  I  sow  and  sometimes  I  thresh. 
In  tailor's  craft  and  tinker's  craft  I  weave  and 
I  wind  what  Truth  can  devise.  For  though  I  say 
it  myself,  I  serve  him  for  pay.  I  have  good  hire 
from  him.  He  is  the  promptest  payer  that  poor 
men  know.  He  is  low  as  a  lamb,  moreover,  and 
lovely  of  speech.  And  if  you  want  to  know  where 
he  lives,  I  shall  show  you  the  way." 

These  hardy,  homely  words,  breathing  the  good 
fragance  of  the  furrow,  and  boldly  claiming  fel- 
lowship with  Truth,  are  the  first  utterance  jof 
the  workingman  in  English  literature.  They  are 
well  worth  noting.  The  poem  now  devotes  itself 
to  developing  Piers'  ideal  function  in  the  social 
order;  and  we  should  probably  have  to  hasten 
down  the  centuries  to  the  time  of  Tolstoi,  to  find 
any  parallel  to  the  conception  broached.  The  pil- 
grims seek  to  hire  Piers  to  lead  them  to  the  Truth 
he  knows  so  well ;  but  the  Plowman  prefers  to 
stick  to  his  work,  and  refuses  bluffly  ;  Truth  would 
love  him  the  less  a  long  while  thereafter  if  he  took 
hire  for  such  a  cause.  He  gladly,  however  gives 
them  directions,  —  long,  delightful,  allegorical  direc- 


30      THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

tions,  quite  in  the  manner  of  Buny_an,  —  and  pro- 
mises them  that  when  they  come  to  the  end  of 
their  journey,  they  will  find  "  Truth  sitting  in  thy 
heart  in  a  chain  of  charity,  as  thou  a  child  were." 
The  people  are  eager  to  set  forth,  though  the  Cut- 
purse  and  the  Apeward  fear  that  they  have  no  kin 
in  Truth's  country.  The  Pardoner  —  own  cousin, 
surely,  to  Chaucer's  pardoner  with  his  "  fire-red 
cherubim's  face  "  —  thinks  that  he  also,  perhaps,  is 
not  known  there !  He  runs  off  for  his  credentials, 
a  box  of  brevets  and  a  bull  with  bishop's  letters. 
But  when  he  returns,  behold,  the  company  has 
started,  and  he  is  left  behind,  amazed !  And  so 
the  Passus  ends. 

The  next  Passus  leads  us  further  into  Lang- 
land's  social  thought  and  economic  speculation  ; 
and  extraordinary  enough  it  is.  The  pilgrim 
company  have  not  gone  far.  The  way  is  compli- 
cated. They  are  discouraged  and  helpless  for  lack 
of  a  guide.  Piers  in  pity  has  changed  his  mind. 
He  wants  to  set  out  with  them ;  but  he  cannot 
leave  his  work.  "  Had  I  only  ploughed  this  half- 
acre,  and  sowed  it  afterwards,"  he  cries,  "  I  would 
wend  with  you  and  teach  the  way."  Perhaps 
there  is  a  modern  suggestion  in  this  emergency: 
the  workingman,  alone  in  a  disconsolate  civiliz- 
ation possessed  of  the  secret  of  Truth,  unable  to 
share  it  because  upon  his  shoulders  rests  the  burden 
of  the  labor  of  the  world.  If  so,  no  less  modern 
is  the  hint  of  the  way  of  escape  and  salvation.  It 
is  a  fine  lady  who  discovers  it,  —  a  lady  fashionably 
dressed  in  a  "  sklayre  "  or  veil.  She  demands  to 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     31 

be  set  to  work,  to  hasten  the  waiting.  The  Knight 
follows  suit.  He  is  a  delightful  creation,  Lang- 
land's  Knight,  charming  in  his  way  as  Chaucer's, 
a  gentleman  every  inch  of  him.  He  is  eager  to 
share  Piers'  toil.  He  never  was  taught,  he  says, 
to  guide  a  team,  but  he  will  do  his  best  if  Piers 
will  set  him  at  it !  Redistribution  of  labor,  Lang- 
land  hints,  is  the  first  necessity  of  the  converted 
world.  But  no  sooner  has  the  Laborer-Lord  fairly 
set  his  community  to  work  than  he  is  bothered  by 
all  sorts  of  economic  problems.  Worst  of  all  are 
the  lazy  people  or  leisure  class,  —  his  pet  detestation, 
the  "  wastours."  They  sit  and  sing  "  How !  trolli 
lolli,"  while  he  is  at  the  plough  with  his  pilgrims ; 
and  when  he  remonstrates,  they  remark  that  they 
have  "  no  limbs  to  labor  with,  thank  God,"  "  but  we 
will  pray  for  you,  Piers,  and  for  your  plough,"  — 
a  method  of  vicarious  toil  not  yet  out  of  fashion. 
Piers  is  very  severe  with  these  gentry ;  but  he 
finds  it  hard  to  distinguish  between  them  and  the 
honestly  incompetent.  Poor  Piers !  He  is  facing 
what  in  modern  parlance  is  known  as  the  pro- 
blem of  the  "  dependent,  defective,  and  delinquent 
classes."  He  is  torn  asunder  between  his  sense 
of  religious  duty  to  them  —  "  they  are  my  bloody 
brethren,  and  God  bought  us  all"  —  and  his  convic- 
tion that  a  little  stout  discipline  is  what  they  need. 
He  tries  to  get  the  Knight  to  help  him,  but  that 
gentle  worthy  is  too  courteous  by  half,  and  proves 
of  no  use  at  all.  " '  I  was  not  wont  to  work,' 
quoth  Wastour,  '  and  now  will  I  not  begin  ! '  And 
set  light  of  the  law  and  less  of  the  knight."  Piers 


32     THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

finally  decides  the  matter  with  mingled  kindliness 
and  keenness,  providing  for  the  really  infirm  after 
a  fashion  that  suggests  latter-day  philanthropy, 
and  subduing  the  rest  by  the  grim  but  wholesome 
help  of  Hunger.  This  gaunt  Servitor  bids  him 
let  nobody  actually  starve,  but  if  able-bodied  men 
refuse  to  work,  Piers  is  to  give  them  only  "  hound's 
bread  and  horse's  bread  "  and  "  abate  them  with 
beans ; "  and  "  if  the  men  grumble,  bid  them  go 
swink  [labor],  and  they  shall  sup  sweeter  when 
they  have  deserved  it."  1 

Hunger  has  other  salutary  and  entertaining 
counsels  to  give,  and  Piers  faces  other  industrial 
situations  with  a  curiously  prophetic  note  in  them. 
But  enough  has  been  said  to  make  the  central  idea 
of  the  poem  plain.  It  is  a  sufficiently  notable 
sight,  —  that  quaint  mediaeval  assembly,  of  mer- 
chants and  lawyers  and  knights  and  priests  and 
monks  and  jesters  and  ladies,  enthusiastically  sub- 
mitting itself  to  arduous  toil,  and  bending  over 
the  plough  at  the  hest  of  its  chosen  guide,  the 
Laborer.  The  picture  would  delight  Ruskin  or 
Tolstoi.  The  whole  conception  of  the  working- 
man,  with  God's  simple  wisdom  in  his  keeping,  set 
free  to  serve  as  guide  to  Truth  by  eager  voluntary 
sharing  in  his  toil  on  the  part  of  all  converted  folk, 
is  quite  in  a  certain  modern  strain.  Langland 
tells  us  nothing  more  about  the  pilgrimage  to 
Truth.  Perhaps  even  his  imagination  could  not 
fly  far  enough  to  picture  the  time  when  productive 
work  should  be  in  such  a  shape  that  men  should 
1  B  Text,  Passns  VI.  1.  217. 


LAN  GLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     33 

be  free  for  speculation.  Perhaps,  and  one  likes 
the  thought  better,  the  pilgrims  did  not  need  to 
wander  far,  and  even  as  they  toiled  with  loom  and 
plough,  were  rewarded  by  finding  Truth  sitting  in 
their  hearts. 

VI 

The  working-people,  typified  in  Piers,  have 
already  been  exalted  in  this  curious  poem  to  a 
position  which  has  hardly  been  thought  of  in  the 
most  advanced  democracy.  Comrades  and  inti- 
mates of  Truth,  they  have  the  converted  world  as 
disciples,  eager  to  share  their  toil.  In  them  is 
vested  the  chief  power  of  social  reorganization. 
It  is  striking  that  this  radical  conception,  which 
goes  in  a  way  the  whole  length  of  modern  social- 
ism, is  handled  with  conservative  moderation. 
Respect  for  king  and  aristocracy  are  salient  fea- 
tures of  Langland's  work,  and  the  profound  spir- 
itual and  social  revolution  of  which  he  dreams  is 
to  leave  the  framework  of  society  unchanged.  It 
is  fruitless  to  inquire  whether  we  have  here  central 
inconsistency  or  profound  insight ;  but  we  cannot 
fail  to  ask  by  what  right  and  from  whose  will 
such  power  is  vested  in  the  Laborer  ?  The  poem, 
as  it  proceeds,  gives  at  least  a  partial  answer  to 
this  question :  for  the  idea  of  Piers  is  not  yet  fully 
developed.  So  far  it  has  been  economic  and  social ; 
but  Langland's  thought  can  never  long  ignore  the 
religious  basis  of  life.  His  Christianity  is  the  de- 
termining force  of  his  whole  work.  It  is  Christian- 
ity of  a  curious  and  interesting  order.  He  has  the 


34      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Catholic  conception  of  the  Church  as  an  organism 
at  once  social  and  religious,  nor  was  he  ever  a  con- 
scious antagonist  of  the  Church  as  an  institution. 
At  the  same  time,  no  authority  shackles  his  thought. 
"  I  will  seek  Truth  first,  ere  I  see  Rome,"  exclaims 
Langland.  He  has  a  horror  of  the  material  pos- 
sessions and  ambitions  of  the  Church  :  "  Bishops 
shall  be  blamed  for  beggars'  sakes,"  he  says,  and  his 
bitter  outcry  against  the  gift  of  Constantine  echoes 
a  nobler  cry  in  Dante.  "  When  Constantine  of 
his  courtesy  Holy  Church  dowered  with  lands  and 
deeds,  lordships  and  rents,  an  angel  men  heard 
on  high  at  Rome  cry,  '  Dos  ecclesise '  this  day  hath 
drunk  venom,  and  those  that  have  Peter's  power 
are  poisoned  all." l  It  is  the  note  constantly  found 
in  Wyclif.  Langland  accepts  orthodox  theology, 
but  with  puzzled  spirit.  "  The  more  I  muse  therein, 
the  mistier  it  seemeth,"  he  sighs ;  "  the  deeper  I 
divine,  the  darker  me  it  thinketh."  Deed,  not 
dogma,  is  heart  of  faith  for  him,  and  Love  is  all 
his  creed,  "leech  of  life,  and  next  Our  Lord's 
Self."  "  Learn  to  love,"  says  Nature  at  the  end 
of  the  poem,  "  and  leave  of  all  other." 

But  of  the  old  poet,  Wordsworth's  beautiful 
lines  might  have  been  written.  "Love  had  he 
found  in  huts  where  poor  men  dwell."  His  Chris- 
tianity finds  central  expression,  not  in  priest,  but 
in  Plowman.  He  was  possessed  by  the  idea  for 
which  Protestantism  was  to  fight  many  battles,  the 
priesthood  of  the  laity.  As  the  poem  advances, 

1  B  Text,  Passus  XV.  11.  519^522.     See  Inferno,  Canto  XIX. 
11.  115-117. 


LAN  GLAND  AND  THE  MIDDLE  AGES     35 

his  hero  Piers  becomes  vested  more  and  more  with 
religious  significance  and  authority.  In  the  sev- 
enth Passus,  Truth  sends  to  him  a  bill  of  pardon ; 
and  the  Laborer  becomes  not  only  the  secular  but 
the  religious  Head  of  the  community.  The  bull  is 
lenient  to  good  kings  and  knights,  more  severe  on 
merchants  and  lawyers :  but  to  honest  laborers  is 
granted  full  absolution. 

"  All  living1  laborers  that  work  with  their  hands, 
That  truly  take  and  truly  win, 
And  live  in  love  and  law  for  their  low  hearts 
Have  the  same  absolution  that  was  sent  to  Piers." 1 

Sufferers  also  are  tenderly  exempt.  But  a  priest 
comes  along  and  challenges  Piers'  pardon ;  and 
when  Piers  at  his  prayer  unfolds  the  bull,  the  poet 
standing  behind  reads  simply  two  lines :  "  Et  qui 
bona  egerunt,  ibuut  in  vitam  eternam,  qui  vero 
mala,  in  ignem  eternam."  The  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority, naturally  enough,  is  far  from  satisfied. 
" '  Peter ! '  quoth  the  priest,  '  I  can  no  pardon  find, 
but  do  well  and  have  well,  and  God  shall  have  thy 
soul.' "  Piers,  much  chagrined  and  a  little  per- 
plexed, enters  into  discussion  with  the  priest,  and 
with  the  vexed  sound  of  the  argument  —  not  yet 
concluded  —  between  ecclesiastical  authority  and 
moral  common  sense,  the  Dreamer  awakes. 

The  Visions,  when  renewed,  start  with  the  key- 
note just  given,  and  seek  to  find  what  it  is  to  Do 
Well.  Leaving  economic  speculation  and  puzzle, 
they  advance  into  ethical,  metaphysical,  and  reli- 
gious thought.  The  figure  of  the  Plowman  van- 
1  B  Text,  Passus  VII.  1.  62. 


36      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

ishes  in  the  mazes  of  the  poem,  and  seems  forgot- 
ten; but  now  and  then  his  name,  heard  at  some 
unexpected  moment,  brings  comfort  in  the  hour  of 
spiritual  stress,  or  causes  the  hearer  to  swoon  for 
pure  joy.  When  Piers  does  reappear  at  last,  in 
the  sixteenth  Passus,  he  is  transfigured  and  exalted. 
Always  the  type  of  a  class,  he  has  now  become  in  the 
fullest  sense  a  spiritual  symbol,  fraught  with  mean- 
ing ;  yet  what  deep  imaginative  brooding  over  the 
life  and  fate  of  the  working-people  has  shaped  his 
ideal  destiny !  He  is  the  keeper  of  the  mystic  tree 
of  Patience,  whereof  the  fruit  is  Charity,  which 
grows  in  the  human  heart.  The  sturdy  character 
whom  first  we  met  as  guide  to  Truth  has  become, 
by  virtue  of  submission  and  endurance,  guardian 
of  Love  also.  But  further  glory  awaits  him.  The 
strange  poem  advances  into  a  symbolic  render- 
ing of  the  Passion  and  Resurrection :  and,  behold, 
there  comes  riding  "  One  semblable  to  the  Samar- 
itan, and  some  del  to  Piers  the  Plowman,"  -  -  Very 
Christ,  the  Son  of  David.  Faith,  who  hails  Him 
from  a  window,  tells  the  poet  in  strange  and  mystic 
phrase  that  "  Jesus  shall  joust  in  Piers'  arms,  in 
his  helm  and  habergeon,  humana  natura."  The 
Passion  is  accomplished :  the  Dreamer  is  in  Church ; 
and  in  midst  of  the  Mass,  he  suddenly  sleeps  and 
beholds  in  vision  Piers  the  Plowman,  coming  in 
with  a  Cross  before  the  common  people,  marked 
with  bloody  wounds,  "  and  like  in  all  limbs  to  Our 
Lord  Jesus." 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  by  this 
extraordinary  image,  Langland  meant  exactly  to 


LANGLAND  AND  THE  MIDDLE  AGES     37 

identify  Piers  with  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  To 
him  the  working-man  is  simply  the  best  embodi- 
ment of  the  Christ  idea.  Once  more  the  symbol 
changes :  the  glorified  Lord  ascends  to  heaven ; 
and  now  Piers  becomes  the  entire  Christian  body, 
literally  and  mystically  vowed  to  labor,  and  com- 
posed of  the  meek  of  the  earth.  The  homely 
qnaintness  of  the  agricultural  imagery  is  continued 
in  a  curious  way.  On  Piers  descends  the  Spirit ; 
his  plough  is  drawn  by  the  Four  Evangelists,  St. 
John  being  "the  prize  neat  of  Piers'  plough."  His 
barns  are  the  Church  of  God,  and  he  goes  forth  to 
sow  the  seed  of  the  four  cardinal  virtues  in  the 
furrows  of  the  world.  The  allegory  leaves  him 
defending  the  unity  of  the  Church  against  many 
foes.  A  new  story  is  developed,  full  of  sorrow  and 
foreboding ;  and  at  the  very  end  Conscience,  sore 
beset,  takes  up  his  pilgrim-staff,  and  starts  weeping 
to  wander  wide  over  the  world,  till  he  find  Piers 
the  Plowman. 

vn 

The  exaltation  of  the  Laborer  through  the  latter 
part  of  the  poem  is  of  course  most  striking.  So 
strong  is  the  contrast  between  the  uncouth  work- 
man of  the  early  Passus,  with  his  rough  and  ready 
speech,  and  the  majestic  figure  of  the  close,  that 
some  critics  have  supposed  an  abrupt  change  in 
Langland's  thought  and  intent.  Yet  the  more  one 
studies  the  "  Visions,"  the  more  one  becomes  con- 
vinced that  the  development  of  Piers,  which  is  very 
carefully  wrought,  was  in  the  author's  mind  from 


38      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

the  beginning.  His  deepest  convictions  and  his 
most  earnest  thought  find  expression  in  the  beau- 
tiful symbol  of  the  Plowman-lord. 

No  intellectual  theory  of  the  state,  but  a  spirjt- 
ual  attitude  toward  poverty  and  labor,  determines 
Langland's  social  allegory.  In  reverence  for  pov- 
erty there  was  nothing  strange  to  the  mediaeval 
mind.  The  Church  had  never  ceased  to  recom- 
mend abstention  from  worldly  goods  as  a  counsel 
of  perfection  to  her  children ;  but  the  renunciation 
was  to  the  end  of  contemplation  rather  than  of 
useful  activity,  and  contemplation  may  be  dan- 
gerously near  hysteria  or  idleness.  What  was  dis- 
tinctive in  Langland  was  that  the  special  type  of 
poverty  which  he  revered  accompanied  productive 
toil.  Sacerdotal  laziness  was  abhorrent  to  him. 
Charity  was  indeed,  he  admits,  once  found  in  a 
friar's  frock,  "  but  that  was  long  ago,  in  St.  Fran- 
cis' time."  He  goes  out  of  his  way,  in  describing 
the  Manger  of  the  Nativity,  to  exclaim  with  naif 
satire,  "  If  any  friar  were  found  there,  I  give  thee 
five  shillings  ! "  His  strong  distaste,  evinced  again 
and  again,  for  communistic  schemes  may  doubtless 
be  traced  to  his  contempt  for  the  friars,  the  only 
exponents  of  such  schemes  whom  he  knew.  But 
from  distaste  for  religious  beggars  he  turns  to  no 
comfortable  respect  for  vested  interests  or  private 
property.  Seeking  over  the  world  for  the  likeness 
of  his  Lord,  he  found  it,  not  in  the  artificial  rags 
and  dirt  of  the  friars,  nor  yet  among  the  respec- 
table well-to-do,  but  among  the  rough  laborers  of 
England. 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     39 

Langland's  work  thrills  with  sorrowful  con- 
sciousness of  the  difficult  life  of  faithful  working- 
people.  He  is  alive  to  every  detail  of  their 
condition :  their  wretched  diet  and  shelter ;  their 
oppression  by  employer,  usurer,  and  retail-dealer ; 
their  endless  fatigue  in  toil.  The  Epic  of  the 
Workers  has  never  been  written,  but  Langland 
might  have  written  it,  had  the  gift  of  art  been  his. 
All  the  sympathy  of  his  great  heart  goes  forth  to 
those  who 

"  played  full  seldom  : 

'  In  setting  and  in  sowing  swonken  1  full  hard, 
And  won  that  which  wastours  with  gluttony  destroyed."  2 

His  grieving  sense  of  their  helplessness  breaks  into 
pitiful  appeal  to  the  Divine  Compassion  :  — 

"  Poor  people,  Thy  prisoners,  Lord,  in  the  pit  of  mischief, 
Comfort  Thy  creatures  that  much  care  suffer 
Through  dearth,  through  drought,  all  their  days  here. 
Woe  in  winter  times  for  wanting  of  clothes, 
And  in  summer  time  seldom  sup  to  the  full ; 
Comfort  Thy  careful,  Christ,  in  Thy  ryche  3 
For  how  Thou  comf ortest  all  creatures,  clerks  bear  witness."  * 

Nothing  but  the  Infinite  Pity  can  suffice  for  the 
infinite  pathos  of  human  life.  To  solve  the  terrible 
problems  presented  by  the  life  of  the  poor,  Lang- 
land  has  no  power.  The  tone  of  his  poem  is  be- 
wildered and  sad,  at  times  all  but  hopeless.  Yet 
as  he  broods  there  comes  to  him  a  great,  a  mys- 
tic thought  of  consolation.  The  laborers'  service 
of  humanity  is  revealed  to  him  as  a  sacred  thing. 
In  labor  and  in  poverty,  honestly  pursued  and  pa- 

1  Toiled.  2  B  Text,  Prologue,  11.  20-23. 

8  Kingdom.          4  B  Text,  Passus  XIV.  11.  172-178. 


40      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

tiently  borne,  he  comes  to  feel  a  divine,  a  redemp- 
tive power.     The  poor  become  in  his  eyes  not  so 
I  much  victims  as  saviours  of  the  very  society  which 
\  ignores  them.     And  so  comes  to  pass  his  investi- 
]  ture  of  their  lives  with  a  religious  significance  and 
a  spiritual  glory.     In  the  poverty  of  common  folk, 
unromantic,  homely,  with  no  mark  of  sacerdotal 
aloofness  from  the  general  human  lot,  our  first  Eng- 
lish social  prophet  beheld  the  likeness  of  Christ :  — 

"  Therefore  be  not  abashed  to  bidde  and  be  needy, 
Since  He  that  wrought  all  the  world  was  wilfully  needy, 
Never  none  so  needy  and  none  so  poor  died."  l 

"  But  well  worth  Poverty  ! 

Our  Prince  Jesus  Poverty  chose,  and  His  apostles  all, 
And  aye  the  longer  they  lived,  the  less  goods  they  had. "  2 

"  Why  I  move  this  matter  is  mostly  for  the  poor, 
For  in  their  likeness  Our  Lord  oft  hath  been  known,"  — 

as  in  the  walk  to  Emmaus,  when  "for  His  poor 
apparel  and  pilgrim  weed,"  the  disciples  knew  Him 
not:  — 

"  And  all  was  in  ensample  to  us  sinful  here 
That  we  should  be  low  and  lovely  of  speech, 
And  apparel  us  not  over  proudly,  for  pilgrims  are  we  all, 
And  in  the  apparel  of  a  poor  man,  and  pilgrim's  likeness, 
Many  times  God  has  been  met  among  needy  people, 
Where  never  sage  saw  Him  in  suit  of  the  rich."  3 

With  this  profoundly  religious  conception  of 
poverty  as  an  attribute  of  Christ  Himself,  it  is  no 
wonder  if  Langland  not  only  finds  comfort  for  the 
poor  in  that  example,  but  presses  it  upon  all  men 

1  C  Text,  Passus  XXIII.  11.  48-50. 

2  C  Text,  Passus  XIV.  11.  1-3. 

8  B  Text,  Passus  XL  11.  224-237. 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     41 

as  the  truest  way  to  spiritual  freedom.  The  Coun- 
sel of  Poverty  is  the  burden  of  his  preaching ;  but 
the  poverty  for  which  he  pleads  is  no  sentimental 
ecstasy,  but  a  voluntary  consecration  to  productive 
\vprk.  His  thought  is  akin  to  that  so  often  found 
in  modern  art,  which  gives  us  a  workman-Christ  in 
the  garb  of  our  own  poor. 

Langland's  respect  for  poverty  springs  in  part 
from  a  conviction  that  the  poor  are,  on  the  whole, 
likely  to  be  better  than  the  rich.  Our  modern  in- 
stinct is  rather  the  other  way,  and  feels  vaguely 
assured  that  poverty  and  vice  are  likely  to  be  con- 
nected, and  that  it  is  more  creditable  to  be  well- 
to-do  than  poverty-stricken.  Perhaps  the  Gospels 
lean  a  little  to  Langland's  side.  "  Have  mercy  on 
these  rich  men,  Lord,  and  of  Thy  Mercy  give  them 
grace  to  amend,"  cries  the  old  poet,  with  a  tender- 
ness that  transcends  class  limitations.  "Were 
there  not  mercy  in  poor  men  more  than  in  the 
rich,  many  times  beggars  might  go  hungry,"  "  The 
rich  clothe  the  rich,  and  help  them  that  give  help 
in  return,  as  one  might  pour  water  on  the  Thames." 
Langland's  Christianity,  full  of  comfort  and  cour- 
age for  the  poor,  is  severe  and  serious  in  its  tone 
towards  the  prosperous :  — 

"  For  the  rich  hath  much  to  reckon,  and  right  soft  he  walketh 
The  highway  heavenward,  oft  riches  hindereth. 
Then  the  poor  presseth  before,  and  boldly  he  craveth 
For  his  poverty  and  patience,  perpetual  bliss."  1 

The  apostles  bear  witness,  says  Scripture  to  the 

Pilgrim,  that   the  poor  "  have   their  heritage  in 

heaven,  and  by  true  right,  where  rich  men  no  right 

1  B  Text,  Passus  XIV.  11.  209-214. 


42      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

can  claim  but  by  ruth  and  grace."  The  Pilgrim 
rejoins  with  good  orthodox  perplexity  that  he  has 
understood  that  every  baptized  person  is  safe,  be 
he  rich  or  poor;  but  Scripture  informs  him  that 
this  is  in  extremis,  among  Saracens  and  Jews. 
'  Only  to  the  jworkers  of  the  world,  only  to  the 
simple-hearted,  comes  peace.  Their  ears  alone, 
Langland  tells  us  in  a  lovely  passage,  are  open  to 
the  angelic  tidings  of  great  joy :  — 

"  To  pastours  and  to  poets  appeared  that  angel, 
And  bade  them  go  to  Bethlehem,  God's  birth  to  honor, 
And  snng  a  song  of  solace,  Gloria  in  excelsis  Deo. 
Rich  men  rutte  l  then,  and  in  their  rest  were, 
When  it  shone  to  the  shepherds,  a  shewer  of  bliss."  2 

Even  antiquity,  queerly  conceived,  in  mediaeval 
fashion,  bears  witness  to  the  superior  value  of  the 
life  without  possessions  :  — 

"  Aristotle,  Ovidius,  and  eleven  hundred, 
Tullius,  Ptolemseus,  I  cannot  tell  their  names, 
Prove  patient  poverty  prince  of  all  virtues."  3 

This  is  really  the  sum  and  substance  of  Langland's 
teaching. 

The  protracted  poem  wanders  in  many  directions, 
exploring  various  byways  of  inquiry  and  experi- 
ence, meeting  many  quaint  fancies  and  keen  per- 
ceptions. One  may  learn  from  it  much  concerning 
the  thoughts  of  men  of  the  fourteenth  century  on 
reward  and  bribery,  on  the  relations  of  king  to 
commons  and  knighthood,  on  natural  science,  on 
the  fate  of  men  after  death,  on  marriage,  on  all  the 

1  Snored.  2  B  Text,  Passus  XII.  11.  150-154. 

8  C  Text,  Passus  XIII.  11.  174-176. 


large  primal  interests  which  go  to  make  up  living. 
But  however  Langland  circles,  he  always  returns 
to  the  same  centre.  His  exact  thought  is  some- 
times hard  to  grasp,  but  his  drift  is  always  clear. 
Perplexed  by  life's  inequalities,  filled  with  deep 
compassion  for  suffering,  he  finds  escape  in  faith, 
in  simplicity  of  life,  in  fellowship  with  the  hum- 
ble. The  absence  of  asceticism  and  the  stress 
on  utility  give  his  ideal  a  curiously  modern  note. 
It  is  poverty  like  that  urged  by  Tolstoi,  which 
draws  him.  For  unworldliness  of  this  homely  type 
he  constantly  pleads  :  — 

' '  All  the  wise  that  ever  were,  by  aught  I  can  espy, 
Praise  Poverty  for  best,  if  Patience  it  follow.' ' l 

That  mystical  and  spiritual  reverence  for  labor 
and  poverty  as  part  of  the  Christian  ideal,  which  is 
the  very  heart  and  centre  of  Langland' s  thought, 
probably  lingered  till  long  after  his  day.  She 
who,  to  use  Dante's  noble  phrase,  had  leapt  with 
Christ  upon  the  Cross,  continued  for  centuries  to 
cling  in  men's  thought  to  the  image  of  the  Cruci- 
fied. Only  when  the  materializing  influences  of 
the  Renascence  had  done  their  perfect  work,  did 
the  world  cease  to  feel  that  in  the  highest  type  of 
Christian  life  riches  were  abjured.  The  reaction 
toward  simplicity  in  our  own  day  is  one  of  the  most 
marked  and  unexpected  phases  of  our  spiritual 
and  social  growth.  To  Langland  —  first  English 
poet  to  feel  the  stirrings  of  the  social  conscience  — 
the  only  means  of  social  salvation  lies  in  the  volun- 
tary action  of  Christ's  disciples.  He  has  not  much 
1  B  Text,  Passus  XI.  11.  247,  248. 


44      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

hope  that  the  world  will  ever  be  made  over,  and 
injustice  and  oppression  cease.  A  wistful  patience 
is  the  spirit  of  his  poem. 

"  To  see  much  and  suffer  more,  certes,  quoth  I, 
is  to  do  well,"  he  sighs.  He  has  no  wide-reaching 
schemes  for  social  reconstruction,  no  ideals  of  a 
perfect  state  where  freedom  shall  be  the  heritage 
of  all  men.  With  the  constitution  of  things  he 
has  no  affair.  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  would 
have  shrunk  from  the  part  his  poem  was  destined 
to  play  in  the  Peasants'  Uprising,  and  would  have 
denounced  the  Reformation.  Certainly  he  antici- 
pates no  sweeping  change  in  the  existent  social 
order.  The  consolation  he  offers  lies  in  no  intel- 
lectual scheme  nor  political  Utopia:  but  simply 
and  solely  in  the  enduring  intuition  of  the  heart, 
that  God  suffers  and  waits  with  His  world.  Says 
Reason,  in  words  that  strangely  recall  a  similar 
strain  in  Browning's  "  Saul :  "  — 

"  Why  I  suffer  or  not  suffer,  thyself  hath  nought  to  do ; 
Amend  thou  it  if  thou  might :  for  My  time  is  to  abide. 
Sufferance  is  a  sovereign  virtue  and  a  swift  vengeance. 
Who  suffereth  more  than  God  ?  quoth  he.    No  man,  as  I  live. 
He  might  amend  in  a  minute  -  while  all  that  amiss  standeth, 
But  He  suffereth  for  some  men's  good,  and  so  is  our  better." 1 

Entering  into  the  mystery  of  the  divine  patience, 
men  may  endure  and  wait.  And  meanwhile  for 
all  Christ's  folk  Langland  has  a  message.  He 
looks  to  Christianity  as  the  one  hope  for  social 
regeneration;  he  is  perhaps  the  first  Englishman 
thoughtfully  to  dwell  on  the  social  power  of  the 
1  B  Text,  Passus  XI.  11.  368-373. 


LANGLAND  AND   THE  MIDDLE  AGES     45 

faith  of  Christ.  His  chief  allegory  relates,  let  us 
not  forget,  to  people  already  converted,  to  the 
children  of  the  Church.  He  calls  upon  them,  not 
only  to  accept  the  word  of  their  Lord,  but  to  follow 
His  example  of  love  and  labor,  and  to  join  the 
congregation  of  His  poor.  If  obeyed,  the  appeal  of 
the  old  poet  would  result  in  the  formation  of  a  sort 
of  voluntary  Christian  socialism  in  the  midst  of  a 
rigid  social  order  and  an  unheeding  world.  This 
appeal  is  the  first  word  of  the  social  literature  of 
England. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  UTOPIA   OF   SIR  THOMAS   MORE 


% 

A  LONG  reach  of  years  —  nearly  a  century  and 
a  half  —  lies  between  the  "  Visions  "  of  Langland 
and  the  "Utopia"  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  A  farther 
reach  of  spiritual  distance  separates  the  rude  and 
wistful  mediaeval  dreamer,  who  saw  in  the  laborer  at 
his  task  the  image  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  from 
the  cultured  statesman  of  the  Renascence.  More 
is  the  representative  scholar  of  the  New  Learning 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  '  His  winning  personality 
and  interesting  career  surprise  us  with  an  almost 
contemporary  freshness,  and  show  that  we  have 
passed  from  the  mystery  which  makes  the  whole 
tone  of  mediaeval  life  at  once  alluring  and  strange, 
to  the  modern  atmosphere  and  the  modern  spirit. 

Nothing  is  more  distinctive  in  the  period  of  the 
Renascence,  nothing  affords  more  remarkable  wit- 
ness to  the  individualism  which  it  everywhere  fos- 
tered, than  the  sudden  appearance  of  distinct 
characters.  We  no  longer  look,  as  in  mediaeval 
annals,  on  shining  arms  or  drooping  cowl,  half 
fearful  lest  they  conceal  shadows  ;  we  gaze  straight 
into  expressive  faces,  alert  with  intelligence,  eager 
as  we  are  eager,  with  the  same  note  of  question, 


THE  UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     47 

maybe,  on  the  brow.  This  is  the  most  marvelous 
effect  of  the  art  of  Italy,  when  from  the  long  bond- 
age of  the  Dark  Ages  with  their  immobility  of 
type,  it  leaps -into  freedom.  Character,  vigorously 
varied,  fascinating,  living,  glances  at  us  from  the 
faded  canvas  of  Ghirlandajo,  of  Botticelli,  insists 
on  being  recognized  as  contemporary,  and  quietly 
establishes,  as  it  were,  a  private  understanding 
between  itself  and  the  observer. 

The  English  renascence  was  widely  different  in 
type  from  the  Italian  :  more  ascetic,  more  sober, 
more  Christian.  No  Borgias  nor  Medicis  ruled 
in  England,  neither  did  any  Raphael  adorn  the 
courts  of  Henry  the  Eighth  and  his  daughters.  In- 
fluences of  the  Reformation  blended  with  those  of 
the  classic  revival,  to  enhance  the  native  serious- 
ness of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  young  scholars  in  Oxford 
and  elsewhere  were  evolving  a  new  spirit  of  reac- 
tion and  intellectual  freedom.  They  spoke  not 
through  art,  but  through  eager  speculation  and 
learning.  In  the  work  of  these  men,  just  as  in 
the  great  portraits  of  Italy,  we  feel  real  personali- 
ties, vivid,  accessible,  and  human.  If  we  know 
More,  Colet,  Erasmus,  if  we  share  their  thought- 
ful schemes,  listen  to  their  jests,  follow  their  di- 
verse yet  united  efforts  to  "  make  reason  and  the 
will  of  God  prevail,"  we  enter  one  of  the  most 
delightful  intellectual  companionships  of  history. 
It  is  a  company  where  all  sense  of  distance  is  for- 
gotten, in  common  interests,  methods,  and  aims. 
Among  this  little  group  of  representative  schol- 


48      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

ars,  More  was  perhaps  not  the  cleverest,  but  he 
was  assuredly  the  most  lovable.  Born  in  1478,  he 
grew  up  in  the  house  of  Cardinal  Morton,  where 
the  general  social  conditions  were  not  unlike  those 
he  was  to  picture  in  his  great  romance.  He  was 
a  boy  of  promise,  witty,  sweet-tempered,  equally 
eager  in  religion  and  in  study.  Admitted  to  the 
bar,  he  knew  rapid  promotion,  and  became  re- 
luctantly Vice-Chancellor  to  that  uncertain  per- 
son, Henry  the  Eighth.  He  served  his  master 
well  and  showed  keen  practical  sense  in  statesman- 
ship, proving,  as  Gladstone  and  many  others  have 
proved  after  him,  that  aptitude  for  the  quiet  life 
of  the  scholar  is  no  bad  preparation  for  a  public 
career.  Yet  he  found  his  joy,  not  in  his  political 
office  with  its  cares  and  interests,  but  in  an  ideal 
domestic  life,  in  charming  colloquy  with  his  scholar 
friends,  above  all  in  strenuous  thinking  and  cease- 
less religious  devotion.  He  bore  with  equanim- 
ity and  sweet  courage  the  withdrawal  of  the  king's 
favor  and  removal  from  office;  steadfastly  re- 
fused to  deny  his  principles  by  ratifying  the  royal 
divorce  from  Catherine,  or  acknowledging  the 
king  as  head  of  the  Church ;  and  died  on  the  block 
in  1535,  claimed  by  the  Church  as  martyr  to  the 
Catholic  faith,  but  also  recognized  by  a  wider  in- 
tuition as  martyr  to  the  spirit  of  freedom. 

II 

The  "  Utopia  "  is  the  book  of  More's  youth.  And 
so  vivid  and  so  daring  is  it  that  its  name  has  not 
only  adhered  to  all  similar  romances,  but  has  be- 


THE   UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     49 

come  a  household  word.  In  some  ways  doubtless 
it  loses,  from  the  social  point  of  view,  if  compared 
with  the  "Vision  of  Piers  the  Plowman."  The 
"  Vision  "  speaks  from  the  people  ;  the  "  Utopia  " 
speaks  for  them.  Langland  has  the  impassioned 
sympathy  of  a  comrade  of  the  poor  ;  More  has  the 
disinterested  thoughtfulness  of  the  scholar  states- 
man. He  has  lived  at  the  desk,  not  at  the  furrow  ; 
he  moves  among  abstractions,  and  we  infer  rather 
than  see  the  laborer  in  his  work.  But  in  com- 
pensation we  know  the  author  of  the  later  book 
as  we  cannot  know  Langland.  Through  More's 
speculations  shines  a  personality  full  of  sweetness 
and  light :  humorous  and  worldly  wise,  yet  pure 
and  tender,  swift  in  stern  wrath,  yet  habitually 
suave.  Langland's  enormous  book  is  the  monu- 
ment of  an  entire  civilization,  the  symphonic  ex- 
pression of  a  mighty  social  class.  More's  short 
and  compact  work  is  the  record  of  individual 
thought,  to  be  accepted,  criticised,  discussed,  on 
the  same  basis  as  the  work  of  Matthew  Arnold  or 
William  Morris.  It  is  to  all  practical  intents  the 
book  of  a  modern  man.  The  "  Utopia  "  is  the  first 
original  story  by  a  known  English  author.  That 
this  earliest  English  novel  should  deal  with  the 
romance,  not  of  a  private  life,  but  of  society  at 
large,  is  curious  enough ;  it  is  even  more  curious 
that  this  first  coherent  conception  of  an  ideal  social 
state  in  our  literature  should  be  the  outcome  of 
the  new  individualism  of  the  Renascence. 

But  however  much  the  author's  stamp  is  upon  it, 
the  "  Utopia,"  like  every  living  book,  is  in  closest 


50      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

relation  to  its  age.  More  is  as  much  a  dreamer 
in  his  way  as  Langland  ;  but  into  his  dreams  have 
passed  new  memories  and  new  hopes.  Langland 's 
medieval  eyes  had  seen  with  startling  distinctness 
the  field  full  of  jostling  fourteenth -century  folk,  but 
his  landscape  was  sharply  bounded,  like  the  back- 
ground of  contemporary  illuminations,  by  the  tall 
tower  of  Truth  on  the  one  hand,  on  the  other  by 
the  yawning  pit  of  Hell.  Far  though  clear  in  dis- 
tant space  sweeps  around  the  wide  horizon  of  the 
Utopia  ;  it  is  bounded  behind  by  the  great  world 
of  antiquity,  luminous  with  art  and  learning ; 
fronting  its  shores,  new  continents,  faintly  dis- 
cerned, wait  in  mystic  silence  to  yield  their  secrets. 
The  book  was  written  in  1515  and  1516.  It  was  a 
time  when  thought  shared  the  audacity  of  action  ; 
and  while  material  ships  were  invading  the  startled 
silence  of  southern  waters,  spiritual  sails  sped  on 
their  way,  "  voyaging  in  strange  seas  of  thought 
alone,"  where  discoveries  greater  than  a  visible 
New  World  were  waiting.1 

The  charming  invention  which  forms  the  setting 
of  the  "Utopia"  is  the  story  of  a  returned  traveler. 
Raphael  Hythloday,  whose  beautiful  first  name  re- 
calls the  traveler-archangel,  is  an  admirably  dis- 
tinct character.  More  draws  him  as  a  gentleman 
and  a  scholar.  He  represents  a  new  type  of  un- 
worldliness  :  for  he  has  stripped  himself  of  wealth 
and  renounced  the  world,  not  from  any  ascetic 
Catholic  impulse,  but  from  the  desire  to  be  free  to 
follow  the  life  of  thought  without  encumbrances. 
1  Compare  Faerie  Queene,  book  ii.  prologue. 


THE  UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     51 

It  is  a  type  which  from  More's  day  to  our  own  has 
now  and  again  existed  ;  and  if  its  tranquil  sever- 
ance of  ties  and  claims  smacks  at  times  of  egotism, 
it  has  yet  an  appeal  of  its  own.  Its  animus  is 
assuredly  that  of  the  classic  philosopher  rather 
than  that  of  the  mediaeval  saint.  Yet  Hythloday's 
character  is  modulated  to  gentleness  in  its  way  by 
Christian  influence.  The  double  genesis  of  that 
exploring  instinct  which  controls  him  is  marked 
at  once,  with  his  introduction :  he  is  a  student 
of  Greek  philosophy ;  and  he  has  traveled  with 
Americus  Vesputius. 

The  first  part  of  Raphael's  discourse  breathes  a 
buoyant  sense  of  expansion.  He  tells  of  his  jour- 
neyings,  and  airs  from  the  land  of  Romance  play 
through  his  descriptions  ;  yet  soon  we  realize  that 
here  is  no  tale  of  marvel,  like  the  delightful  unve- 
racities  of  the  old  pseudo-Mandeville,  but  serious 
thought  bent  on  grave  theory,  and  inspired  by 
interest  in  the  various  forms  of  human  society. 
Those  "wise  and  prudent  institutions  which  he 
observed  among  civilized  nations  "  claim  the  chief 
attention  of  Hythloday.  "  We  asked  him  many 
questions  concerning  all  these  things,  which  he 
answered  very  willingly :  only  we  made  no  en- 
quiries after  monsters,  than  which  nothing  is  more 
common  ;  for  everywhere  one  may  hear  of  raven- 
ing dogs,  and  wolves,  and  cruel  men-eaters ;  but 
it  is  not  so  easy  to  find  states  that  are  well  and 
wisely  governed."  1  If,  then,  the  book  bears  an 
open  debt  to  the  "  Voyages  "  of  Vesputius,  —  in 
1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  ed.  by  Henry  Morley, 


52      THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

which,  indeed,  suggestive  descriptions  are  to  be 
found  of  tribes  that  have  all  things  in  common 
and  despise  gold,  —  it  is  inspired  even  more  fully 
by  More's  philosophical  reading.  Hythloday  has 
remembered  his  Plato  well  while  observing  the 
Polylerits,  the  Achorians,  the  Zapolets,  and  the 
Utopians.  The  Utopians,  noblest  race  of  all,  are 
of  Greek  origin,  and  throughout  the  book  refer- 
ences to  Greek  thought  and  authorities  are  con- 
stant. 

Times  have  changed  indeed  since  Dante  chose 
Vergil  for  his  guide,  and  in  his  fellowship  explored 
the  world  to  come.  The  change  of  reverence 
bespeaks  in  itself  a  new  era.  For  the  tradition  of 
Latin  conservatism,  the  Roman  stress  on  organiza- 
tion, institution,  law,  which  lingered  dimly  through 
the  Middle  Ages,  was  giving  way:  its  place  was 
taken  by  eager  interest  in  fresh  theory,  social  and 
metaphysical,  and  by  the  free  play  of  an  inquiring 
consciousness  around  things  as  they  were ;  in  a 
word,  by  the  revival  of  the  Greek  temper.  The 
faded  manuscripts  from  the  library  of  Constanti- 
nople had  quickened  a  new  impulse  toward  intel- 
lectual liberty  in  the  mediaeval  world.  The  tyranny 
of  ecclesiasticism  was  over ;  and  the  secularization 
of  thought,  the  intense  interest  in  the  world  that 
now  is,  brought  with  it  a  courage  that  upheaved 
the  foundations  of  faith,  and  reared,  in  dream  at 
least,  a  new  society. 


THE  UTOPIA   OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE     53 

III 

The  second  of  the  two  books  that  make  up  the 
"  Utopia  "  is  a  straightforward  account  of  the  coun- 
try of  the  Utopians.  The  first,  which  was  written 
last,  is  a  more  direct  criticism  on  the  country  of  the 
English.  This  first  book  is  of  especial  personal 
interest,  for  it  was  written  just  at  the  period  in 
More's  life  when  the  recluse  scholar  was  holding 
reluctantly  back  from  the  allurements  to  office  and 
dignity  held  out  to  him  by  his  bluff  king. 

The  scene  is  laid  in  a  quiet  Dutch  town,  where 
Peter  Giles,  estimable  citizen  of  Antwerp,  Raphael 
the  traveler,  and  More  himself  hold  an  imaginary 
conversation,  centring  in  the  effort  to  persuade 
Raphael  to  place  his  wide  experience  at  the  service 
of  the  state.  With  admirable  humor  More  exposes 
the  futility  of  the  hope  that  a  student  and  philoso- 
pher should  ever,  in  the  court  of  princes,  make  his 
unworldly  notions  prevail.  There  is  something 
exquisitely  urbane  in  Raphael's  courteous  annihi- 
lation of  the  earnest  and  reiterated  arguments  by 
which  his  friends  seek  to  draw  him  to  a  life  of 
action,  and  in  his  triumphant  demonstration  of 
the  fact,  "  that  there  is  no  room  for  philosophy  in 
the  courts  of  princes."  l  It  is  probable  that  More 
was  haunted,  all  the  time  that  he  was  relieving  his 
mind  in  this  refreshing  conversation,  by  a  sense  of 
its  subtle  selfishness ;  for  he  himself  did  not  follow 
the  sage  counsels  of  Hythloday. 

Besides  the  argument  against  public  life,  which 
1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p.  82. 


54      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

is  its  connecting  thread,  the  first  book  contains 
much  enlightening  criticism  on  the  social  conditions 
of  the  day.  Hythloday  has  been  in  England  "  not 
long  after  the  rebellion  in  the  West  Indies  was 
suppressed,  with  a  great  slaughter  of  the  poor  peo- 
ple that  were  engaged  in  it."  He  reports  a  con- 
versation held  at  the  table  of  Cardinal  Morton,  the 
friend  and  patron  of  More's  youth.  The  point  of 
departure  is  the  drastic  penal  laws  that  exact  capi- 
tal punishment  for  theft;  despite  which  severity, 
so  much  had  theft  increased  that  often  as  many  as 
twenty  were  hanging  on  a  single  gibbet.  Hythlo- 
day goes  swiftly  behind  phenomena  to  cause.  With 
decisive  clearness,  he  traces  the  existence  of  this 
huge  criminal  class  to  industrial  conditions.  He 
points  out  that  the  great  wars  had  drafted  men  off 
from  honest  trades,  and  left  them,  in  time  of  peace, 
a  burden  to  the  country ;  that  the  breaking-up  of 
the  vast  feudal  households,  which  was  so  rapidly 
proceeding  in  his  day,  threw  upon  the  community 
throngs  of  idle  servants,  trained  only  to  minister  to 
the  luxuries  of  the  rich,  demoralized  in  character, 
useless  for  purposes  of  productive  labor ;  that 
finally,  the  rapid  conversion  of  England  into  a 
sheep-grazing  country  —  an  industry  which  required 
vast  territory  and  few  hands  —  was  ruining  trades 
and  agriculture,  and  creating  vast  numbers  of  help- 
less and  unoccupied  people.  England,  in  a  word, 
was  confronted  by  the  great  problem  of  the  Unem- 
ployed. The  conditions  producing  such  a  class 
differed  from  those  leading  to  a  similar  result  in 
our  own  day ;  but  More's  discussion  of  the  situa- 


THE   UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     55 

tion  is  amazingly  modern.  The  offhand  solutions 
of  the  difficulty  were  as  superficial  then  as  they  are 
now ;  it  would  be  well  if  all  modern  thinkers  had 
.as  marked  a  union  of  patience  with  clear  decision 
and  keen  insight,  as  is  shown  by  the  young  states- 
man of  Henry  the  Eighth.  He  points  out  the  great 
danger  to  the  nation  of  a  large  and  growing  class 
really  unable  from  various  causes  to  support  itself 
by  honest  work ;  shows  clearly  the  folly  of  trying 
to  meet  the  problem  by  penal  laws  which  seek  to 
suppress  the  irrepressible,  if  unreasonable,  clamor 
for  life ;  and  suggests  that  only  fundamental  and 
wise  economic  provisions  will  ever  prove  adequate 
to  meet  the  evil,  and  that  penology  is  in  last  resort 
only  a  branch  of  industrial  science.  " '  There  are 
dreadful  punishments  enacted  against  thieves,'  said 
he, '  but  it  were  better  to  make  such  good  provisions 
by  which  every  man  might  be  put  in  a  method  how 
to  live  and  so  be  preserved  from  the  fatal  neces- 
sity of  stealing  and  of  dying  for  it.'  '  There  has 
been  care  enough  taken  for  that,'  said  his  oppo- 
nent ;  '  there  are  many  handicrafts,  and  there  is 
husbandry,  by  which  they  may  make  a  shift  to 
live  unless  they  have  a  greater  mind  to  follow  ill 
courses.'  '  That  will  not  serve  your  turn,'  "  l  says 
Hythloday,  and  then  goes  on  to  show  the  absurdity 
of  supposing  that  untrained  and  ignorant  labor  can 
be  effectively  applied,  haphazard,  at  any  point  of 
the  industrial  system. 

Then  after  enlarging  a  little  on  certain  detailed 
theories  concerning  the  wise  handling  of  crime, 

1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p.^&ir   I  Q 


56      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

More  rapidly  passes  to  a  deeper  analysis  of  the  evil 
at  its  very  roots.  In  the  concluding  pages  of  this 
first  book,  he  sweeps  upward  into  a  general  indict- 
ment of  the  society  of  his  day  in  its  inward  con- 
stitution and  principle,  an  indictment  so  clear  in 
restrained  power,  so  uncompromising,  so  search- 
ing, that  the  most  subversive  and  revolutionary 
modern  critics  could  find  nothing  to  add  in  the 
substance  and  little  to  improve  in  the  presentation. 
This  is  the  determining  passage,  which  gives  the 
clue  to  all  his  thought :  —  "To  speak  plainly  my 
real  sentiments,  I  must  freely  own  that  as  long  as 
there  is  any  property  and  while  money  is  the  stand- 
ard of  all  other  things,  I  cannot  think  that  a  nation 
can  be  governed  either  justly  or  happily ;  not  justly, 
because  the  best  things  will  fall  to  the  share  of  the 
worst  men ;  nor  happily,  because  all  things  will  be 
divided  among  a  few  (and  even  these  are  not  in  all 
respects  happy),  the  rest  being  left  to  be  utterly 
miserable." l 

More  knows  well  enough  that  in  announcing 
such  theories  he  will  be  considered  either  mad  or  a 
fool.  He  hedges  his  way  as  wisely  as  honesty  will 
permit.  He  appeals  to  a  double  authority,  Plato, 
the  lord  of  ancient  thought ;  and  Christ,  the  Lord 
not  only  of  thought  but  of  life.  Keenly  and  clev- 
erly, he  points  out  that  an  idea  may  appear  absurd 
not  from  its  intrinsic  folly,  but  from  the  sin  or 
ignorance  of  those  who  receive  it.  "  If  we  must 
let  alone  everything  as  absurd  or  extravagant 
which  by  reason  of  the  wicked  lives  of  many  seems 

1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p.  8&. 


THE  UTOPIA    OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     57 

uncouth,  we  must,  even  among  Christians,  give  over 
pressing  the  greatest  part  of  those  things  that 
Christ  hath  taught  us,  though  He  has  commanded 
us  not  to  conceal  them,  but  to  proclaim  on  the  house- 
tops that  which  He  taught  in  secret.  The  greatest 
parts  of  His  precepts  are  more  opposite  to  the  lives 
of  the  men  of  this  age  than  any  part  of  my  dis- 
course has  been." 1  Finally,  he  disarms  criticism 
and  obtains  a  hearing  by  the  artistic  device  of 
putting  his  radical  sentiments  upon  the  lips  of 
Hythloclay,  and  presenting  himself  as  a  shocked  and 
conservative  opponent.  And  even  Hythloday  urges 
these  views  for  his  final  excuse  in  refusing  to  bear 
any  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  world.  So  guarded, 
he  goes  on :  "  Whence  I  am  persuaded  that  till 
property  is  taken  away  there  can  be  no  equitable 
or  just  distribution  of  things,  nor  can  the  world  be 
happily  governed ;  for  as  long  as  that  is  maintained, 
the  greatest  and  the  far  best  part  of  mankind  will 
be  still  oppressed  with  a  load  of  cares  and  anxieties. 
I  confess  without  taking  it  quite  away,  those  pres- 
sures that  lie  on  a  great  part  of  mankind  may  be 
made  lighter;  but  they  can  never  be  quite  re- 
moved." .  .  .  For  suppose  all  sorts  of  limiting  laws 
and  provisions,  civil  service  reform,  graded  income 
tax,  etc.  ..."  These  laws,  I  say,  might  have  such 
good  effects  as  good  diet  and  care  might  have  on  a 
sick  man,  whose  recovery  is  desperate  ;  they  might 
allay  and  mitigate  the  disease,  but  it  could  never  be 
quite  healed,  nor  the  body  politic  be  brought  again 
to  a  good  habit,  so  long  as  property  remains  ;  and 

1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p. '89r-  ~i-%-2>4 


58      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

it  will  fall  out  as  in  a  complication  of  diseases,  that 
by  applying  a  remedy  to  one  sore,  you  will  provoke 
another ;  and  that  which  removes  the  one  ill  symp- 
tom produces  others,  while  the  strengthening  one 
part  of  the  body  weakens  the  rest."  1 

A  reply  is  fairly  burning  on  More's  conservative 
lips;  no  sooner  has  Hythloday's  breath  paused 
than  it  leaps  out  eagerly :  —  Property  in  common  ? 
How  absurd  —  and  with  what  delightful  ease  I  shall 
instantly  confute  you !  —  "  '  On  the  contrary,'  " 
answered  I,  " '  it  seems  to  me  that  men  cannot  live 
conveniently  where  all  things  are  common :  how 
can  there  be  any  plenty,  where  every  man  will 
excuse  himself  from  labor?  For  as  the  hope  of 
gain  doth  not  excite  him,  so  the  confidence  that  he 
hath  in  other  men's  industry  may  make  him  sloth- 
ful ;  if  people  come  to  be  pinched  with  want,  and 
yet  cannot  dispose  of  anything  as  their  own,  what 
can  follow  upon  this  but  perpetual  sedition  and 
bloodshed,  especially  when  the  reverence  and  au- 
thority due  to  magistrates  falls  to  the  ground  ?  For 
I  cannot  imagine  how  that  can  be  kept  up  among 
those  that  are  in  all  things  equal  to  one  another.' " 

The  ancient,  the  modern,  the  main  argument 
against  Socialism !  You  may  hear  it  on  the  street- 
corner  to-day,  you  may  read  it  from  the  newspaper, 
in  almost  the  very  words  of  the  conversation  in  the 
quaint  Dutch  town.  Apart  from  possible  truth,  it 
has  one  great  source  of  strength ;  it  can  never  be 
met  by  argument.  Facts  alone  could  disprove  it. 

But  what  are  we  saying  ?  For  here  is  Hythlo- 
1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p. 


THE   UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     59 

day,  smiling,  quiet,  eager  to  speak.  Listen :  "  If 
you  had  been  in  Utopia  with  ine,  and  had  seen 
their  laws  and  rules  as  I  did,  for  the  space  of  five 
years  "  —  Well  thought  of  indeed,  friend  Raphael ! 
Come,  let  us  hoist  the  sails  of  thought  and  swiftly 
speed  with  you  to  that  far,  fair  realm  of  your 
affections. 

And  so,  with  realistic  detail  which  makes  this 
first  of  English  romances  also  one  of  the  most 
charming,  More  leads  us  to  the  second,  or  construc- 
tive part  of  the  book :  the  description  of  his  ideal 
state.  The  very  name  disarms  criticism :  anything 
may  exist  Nowhere ;  and  so  having  cleared  the 
way  —  no  easy  task  —  of  his  reader's  instinctive 
prejudices  and  conventions,  he  presents  his  scheme 
to  be  enjoyed  at  our  ease. 

IV 

The  "  Utopia  "  was  published  in  the  same  year 
with  Macchiavelli's  "  Prince."  The  practical  sub- 
tlety of  the  Italian  renascence  plays  through  the 
one,  making  it  the  most  brilliant  study  ever  written 
of  the  means  by  which  the  world  taken  as  we  find 
it  may  be  used  and  subdued  by  a  master-spirit. 
The  large  idealism  of  the  English  revival  of  letters 
animates  the  other.  It  is  suggestive  to  note  that 
although  More's  dream,  of  the  world  as  it  might 
become  is  still  unrealized,  it  makes  stronger  appeal 
to  our  generation  than  Macchiavelli's  practical  dis- 
cussion of  the  world  as  it  was. 

For  the  most  surprising  thing  in  the  "Utopia"  is 
its  modernness.  Not  only  does  More  predict  mod- 


60      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

ern  inventions  in  curious  detail ;  the  atmosphere  of 
his  world  is  indescribably  like  that  of  our  own  day. 
He  is  thinking  of  men  of  our  own  race  and  belief, 
and  we  follow  his  plans  for  the  beautiful  order  of 
their  lives  with  the  keen  interest  that  comes  from 
a  sense  of  possibility. 

A  sense  of  possibility  is  a  strange  phrase  to  asso- 
ciate with  the  "  Utopia ;  "  for  the  obvious  remark 
that  this  communistic  state  violates  human  nature 
rises  to  every  reader's  lips  as  readily  as  to  those  of 
the  interlocutor  of  Hythloday.  Yet  the  sanity  of 
the  tone  of  the  book  is  as  striking  as  the  audacity 
of  its  ideas ;  and  it  is  curious  to  note  how  many  of 
these  ideas  have  been  translated  into  fact  by  the 
centuries.  More's  conception  of  penology  and  his 
plea  for  religious  toleration  doubtless  appeared  to 
his  contemporaries  quite  as  preposterous  as  his 
industrial  scheme ;  yet  his  construction  of  crime 
and  its  remedies  is  in  harmony  with  our  advanced 
modern  policy,  and  the  religious  freedom  which 
seemed  a  chimerical  vision  for  generations  after 
his  death  has  been  long  enjoyed.  If  the  industrial 
system  on  which  his  society  is  founded  is  still  con- 
fined to  Utopia,  communication  between  that  com- 
monwealth and  England  is  at  least  more  frequent 
than  in  his  day.  One  is  inclined  to  suspect  certain 
of  our  economists,  even,  of  occasional  trips  into 
that  land  of  vision  ;  while  as  for  the  dreamers,  — 
Ruskin,  Bellamy,  Morris,  Howells,  —  they  have 
sojourned  there  long  enough  to  bring  back  full 
reports,  which  differ  sometimes  in  detail  from  those 
of  Hythloday. 


THE   UTOPIA    OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     61 

To  say  that  More's  communistic  ideal  is  open  to 
wide  criticism  is  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  human. 
Every  scheme  of  social  reconstruction  betrays  the 
finite  limitations  of  its  inventor,  and  is  monoto- 
nous in  one  way  if  not  in  another.  One  man's 
fancy  will  be  bewitched  by  the  possibilities  of 
enlarged  ease  and  comfort  to  be  hoped  for  from 
mechanical  inventions  perfected  and  generally 
shared.  He  will  write  books  full  of  ingenious 
descriptions  of  the  free  life  which  men  might  know 
if  material  resources  were  wisely  developed.  Every 
one  will  read  the  books  with  delight,  many  hail  in 
them  the  prophecy  of  a  near  future,  —  till  sud- 
denly some  wiseacre  discovers  that  their  thought  is 
bourgeois,  Philistine,  materialistic.  There  you 
have  "  Looking  Backward  "  and  "  Equality ;  "  and 
we  all  feel  that  our  present  existence,  whatever  its 
futilities,  is  intellectually  richer  than  the  conven- 
ient life  Bellamy  has  pictured.  Another  man  is  an 
artist.  He  does  not  mind  inconvenience,  but  the 
ugliness  of  modern  civilization  haunts  him  like  a 
nightmare  ;  and  with  his  mind  stored  with  memo- 
ries of  all  that  has  been  most  beautiful  in  the  past, 
he  dreams  a  fair  dream  for  us  of  a  lovely  future, 
where  architecture  shall  be  redeemed  from  sordid- 
ness  to  dignity,  and  people  from  vulgarity  to  grace. 
His  dream  is  a  decorative  frieze,  without  depth  or 
movement ;  seek  to  penetrate  below  aspect  to  soul, 
and  the  beauty  flees.  We  turn  away  bored  from 
the  monotonous  charm  of  Morris'  "  News  from 
Nowhere  ;  "  yet  the  artist  could  create  only  an 
artistic  ideal,  and  it  is  fair  to  put  the  aspect  not 


62      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

the  soul  of  his  society  beside  the  society  of  our 
own  day.  But  indeed  "  the  best  in  this  kind  are 
but  shadows,"  and  no  imagination  of  the  perfect 
state,  with  personal  stress  on  a  personal  ideal, 
whether  of  comfort,  beauty,  or  freedom,  can  equal 
the  imperfect  but  marvelous  ministry  to  human 
need  and  growth  in  our  rough  civilization  as  it  is. 
To  say  this  is  simply  to  say  that  life  is  greater  than 
art ;  it  is  not  to  deny  that  art  can  hold  up  an 
unattained  ideal  to  life,  a  hint  at  a  time.  Our 
modern  society  is  doubtless  more  interesting  than 
that  imagined  by  Bellamy,  or  Morris,  or  More ; 
yet  their  several  ideals  may  point,  each  in  its  own 
line,  the  way  toward  a  new  and  nobler  state. 

In  More,  the  emphasis  falls  on  quite  a  different 
place  from  that  in  any  modern  Utopia ;  and  both 
the  strong  and  weak  points  in  his  scheme  are  ex- 
actly what  would  be  expected.  Morris  imagines  a 
society  whose  end  should  be  beauty,  Bellamy  one 
whose  end  should  be  ease.  The  quest  of  More  is 
for  conditions  which  should  set  men  free  for  the 
life  of  the  mind. 

The  English  renascence  was  preeminently  inar- 
tistic. It  produced  no  paintings,  no  sculpture.  It 
fostered  thought;  and  it  developed  the  English 
ideal  of  freedom.  Its  stern  spirit,  already  promis- 
ing the  austerity  of  the  Puritan,  may  be  clearly 
felt  in  the  "  Utopia."  The  book  breathes  an  "  at- 
mosphere of  asceticism,"  says  William  Morris, 
"  which  has  a  curiously  blended  savor  of  Cato  the 
Censor  and  a  mediaeval  monk."  This  asceticism 
affects  chiefly  details;  but  unluckily  the  details 


THE  UTOPIA    OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     63 

caught  public  attention,  and  many  people  continue 
to  think  that  all  socialistic  society  would  be  hope- 
lessly monotonous,  because  More  dressed  all  his 
people,  men,  women,  and  children  alike,  in  clothes 
of  one  pattern.  It  is  quite  true  that  outward 
beauty  and  variety  are  almost  wholly  indifferent  to 
him.  If  the  stigma  of  materialism  rests  on  some 
modern  socialistic  dreams,  no  one  could  possibly 
attach  it  to  the  ideals  of  More.  His  one  desire 
is  to  imagine  means  by  which  preoccupation  with 
material  things  may  be  minimized  and  the  best 
force  of  society  be  free  to  devote  itself  to  the  inner 
life. 

The  striking  thing  in  all  social  Utopias,  when 
grouped,  is  that,  however  their  implied  criticisms 
on  the  present  differ  as  to  symptoms,  they  show 
perfect  agreement  as  to  cause.  One  man  is  deeply 
convinced  of  the  ugliness  of  civilization,  another  of 
its  wasteful  inconvenience,  another  of  its  stupidity, 
but  all  believe  that  false  industrial  conditions  are 
the  centre  and  source  of  social  wrong ;  and  all  alike 
feel  that  the  special  reorganization  they  long  for 
must  be  the  result  of  industrial  reform. 

It  is  when  More  settles  down  to  discuss  such 
reform  that  he  becomes  most  modern,  most  sugges- 
tive. He  describes  at  first  indeed,  with  pleasant 
charm,  the  location  of  his  ideal  city,  and  its  ap- 
pearance ;  he  tells  us  briefly  of  the  government, 
a  representative  democracy  leading  upward  to  a 
Prince  for  life ;  but  it  is  in  the  section  "  Of  their 
Trades  and  Manner  of  Life  "  that  we  begin  really 
to  know  the  surprising  Utopians.  We  learn,  to 


64      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

begin  with,  that  they  all  understand  agriculture, 
having  been  trained  in  it  in  youth.  More  has  a 
quiet,  primal,  unsentimental  love  of  the  country, 
and  assurance  that  it  should  be,  during  early  life 
at  least,  the  common  heritage.  His  feeling  is  like 
that  of  Vaughan :  — 

"  Fresh  fields  and  woods  !  the  Earth's  fair  face  ! 
God's  footstool !  and  man's  dwelling-place  ! 
I  ask  not  why  the  first  believer 
Did  love  to  be  a  country  liver  ? 

If  Eden  be  on  Earth  at  all, 

'T  is  that  which  we  the  country  call." 1 

Beside  agriculture,  "  Every  man  has  some  pecu- 
liar trade  to  which  he  applies  himself,"2  and  at 
these  trades  each  person  works  six  hours  a  day. 

Uniformity  in  distribution  of  labor  is  thus  the 
basis  of  Utopian  society.  Here,  it  is  obvious,  the 
thought  of  More  touches  that  of  Langland,  only 
fellowship  in  work  is  no  longer  voluntary  but  com- 
pulsory ;  the  statesman  has  a  clear-cut,  definite,  and 
detailed  theory  to  put  beside  the  spiritual  intuition 
of  the  dreamer  of  Malvern  Hills.  From  the  uni- 
versality of  labor  follows  the  shortness  of  the 
working-day.  If  More's  thought  suggests  that  of 
his  quaint  predecessor,  it  is  still  further  in  line 
with  many  social  theories  that  were  to  follow,  and 
not  only  with  theories  but  with  movements.  The 
six-hour  day  is  not  yet  a  battle-cry  in  the  ranks  of 
labor ;  but  the  eight-hour  day  is  being  eagerly 
claimed  wherever  the  ten-hour  day  has  been  won. 

1  Henry  Vaughan,  Retirement. 

2  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p.  &h 


THE   UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     65 

To  estimate  the  audacity  of  More's  speculation, 
we  must  realize  that  his  plan  antedated  by  sev- 
eral centuries  labor-saving  machinery,  and  contem- 
plated an  industrial  condition  where  all  needs  were 
supplied  by  hand.  He  never  watched  the  action 
of  economic  laws  in  modern  civilization.  He  never 
caught  the  hum  of  these  myriad  machines  which, 
reducing  the  old  labor  of  days  to  hours,  hold  the 
vast  array  of  workmen  bending  over  them  for  as 
long  a  working-day  as  brute  strength  permits,  while 
another  army,  only  less  vast,  waits  hungrily  with 
no  work  at  all,  their  greedy  hands  outstretched  to 
snatch  their  comrades'  "jobs"  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. The  irony  of  the  modern  situation  was 
spared  Sir  Thomas  More. 

One  questions  how,  with  the  primitive  conditions 
known  to  him,  More  ventures  so  to  limit  his  work- 
ing-day. He  gives  us  his  answer  with  his  accus- 
tomed serenity;  it  is  sweeping  enough  in  sugges- 
tion, but  it  can  be  put  into  a  phrase.  He  expects 
to  reach  his  aim  by  two  methods,  —  the  suppres- 
sion of  luxuries  and  the  elimination  of  the  lei- 
sure class  :  —  "  But  the  time  appointed  for  labor 
is  to  be  narrowly  examined,  otherwise  you  may 
imagine,  that  since  there  are  only  six  hours  ap- 
pointed for  work,  they  may  fall  under  a  scarcity  of 
necessary  provisions.  But  it  is  so  far  from  being 
true,  that  this  time  is  not  sufficient  for  supplying 
them  with  plenty  of  all  things,  either  necessary  or 
convenient ;  that  it  is  rather  too  much,  and  this 
you  will  easily  apprehend  if  you  consider  how 
great  a  part  of  all  other  nations  is  quite  idle. 


66      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

First,  women  generally  do  little,  who  are  the  half 
of  mankind ;  and  if  some  few  women  are  diligent, 
their  husbands  are  idle  ;  then  consider  the  great 
company  of  idle  priests,  and  of  those  that  are 
called  religious  men ;  add  to  these  all  rich  men, 
chiefly  those  that  have  estates  in  land,  who  are 
called  noblemen  and  gentlemen,  together  with  their 
families,  made  up  of  idle  persons,  that  are  kept 
more  for  show  than  for  use ;  add  to  these  all  those 
strong  and  lusty  beggars  that  go  about  pretending 
some  disease  in  excuse  for  their  begging ;  and  upon 
the  whole  account  you  will  find  that  the  number 
of  those  by  whose  labors  mankind  is  supplied  is 
much  less  than  you  perhaps  imagined.  Then  con- 
sider how  few  of  those  that  work  are  employed  in 
labors  that  are  of  real  service ;  for  we  who  measure 
all  things  by  money  give  rise  to  many  trades  that 
are  vain  and  superfluous,  and  serve  only  to  support 
riot  and  luxury."  l 

This  plea  for  simplicity  is  a  curious  thing  to  find 
at  the  outset  of  that  sixteenth  century  which  was 
to  see  a  sumptuous  England  aglow  with  color,  ex- 
ulting in  the  pride  of  life.  The  fastidious  scholar 
who  pleaded  for  it  well  knew  against  what  deep- 
seated  instincts  he  was  working.  He  betrays  his 
consciousness  of  the  force  of  the  desires  for  wealth 
and  rank,  by  the  stringent  rules  which  he  lays 
down  to  repress  them.  The  Utopians  have  to 
summon  to  their  aid  not  only  philosophy,  but  most 
ingenious  devices,  to  help  them  quell  their  acquis- 
itiveness ;  and  there  is  a  sad  humor  in  Here's 

1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p. 


THE   UTOPIA    OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     67 


confession  that  the  ghost  of  rank  still  lingers,  an 
honored  presence  among  them,  though  the  body  has 
long  been  buried.  Every  one  remembers  the  clev- 
erness of  the  Utopians  in  attaining  due  contempt 
for  precious  metals  by  using  them  as  material  for 
vile  utensils  and  the  chains  of  slaves ;  nor  does  one 
forget  the  pretty  scene  where  ambassadors  from 
a  foreign  land  appear  resplendent  with  gold  and 
jewels,  only  to  excite  the  laughter  of  the  child, 
whom  the  courteous  mother  quiets  with  the  re- 
mark, "  Peace,  Son  ;  I  think  these  be  some  of  the 
ambassadors'  fools."  We  cannot  fail  to  read  in 
this  vehement  horror  of  soft  living,  and  this  sharp 
sarcasm,  the  bitter  experience  of  one  who  knew 
the  world  and  the  lust  thereof  at  short  range. 

If  More  turns  away  with  an  almost  prescient 
dread  from  permitting  any  luxury  to  his  Utopians, 
it  is  not  because  he  thinks  manual  labor  in  itself 
an  end  in  life,  nor  because  he  believes  in  self- 
mortification.  He  is  untouched  by  a  certain  latter- 
day  cant,  about  labor  being  in  itself  a  glory  and 
an  honor.  He  thinks  it  a  wholesome  thing  in  mod- 
erate amounts,  but  it  should  never  mean  the  whole 
of  life  to  any  human  being.  His  Syphogrants, 
or  ruling  class,  who  are  exempt  from  labor,  do 
indeed  voluntarily  share  it,  not  for  pleasure,  how- 
ever, but  for  the  sake  of  example.  Life  is  neither 
to  the  end  of  self-indulgence  nor  of  toil :  life,  as 
the  friend  of  Colet  and  Erasmus  conceives  it,  is  for 
the  cultivation  of  the  activities  of  the  soul. 

His  analysis  of  industrial  conditions  completed, 
More's  method  is  to  give  a  synthetic  picture  of 


68     THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Utopian  life.  The  society  he  shows  us  is  the  most 
de-materialized,  if  a  word  may  be  coined,  that  any 
dreamer  ever  conceived.  The  impression  carried 
away  from  a  journey  in  Utopia  is  that  of  an  ex- 
treme, though  refined,  simplicity  of  life.  This 
follows  as  a  matter  of  course  from  the  restrictions 
on  luxury  already  mentioned ;  it  is  also  with  the 
Utopians  a  matter  of  taste.  In  costume,  in  social 
forms,  and  almost  all  the  outward  concerns  where 
diversity  and  elaboration  naturally  prevail,  they 
preserve  a  uniform  plainness  of  living. 

Would  Utopia  be  a  pleasant  state  to  live  in? 
Or  would  existence  there  be  insufferably  monoto- 
nous and  dead  ?  This  question  is  a  little  hard  to 
answer  because  it  involves  a  great  deal.  More 
does  assuredly  lose  much  by  shutting  his  people 
off  from  all  the  varied  joy  to  be  gained  from  the 
production,  to  say  nothing  of  the  employment,  of 
beautiful  utilities ;  and  the  absence  of  artistic  glow 
leaves  his  atmosphere  a  little  gray.  So  far  as 
the  decorative  arts  are  concerned,  the  Utopians 
practice  to  the  full  the  aesthetic  reticence  of  the 
Japanese.  Yet  we  must  not  make  him  more 
extreme  than  he  is.  Many  kinds  of  beauty  are 
only  ignored,  not  excluded,  by  his  scheme ;  some 
he  distinctly  introduces.  He  endues  his  town  with 
natural  advantages,  he  gives  it  noble  and  awe- 
inspiring  temples  ;  and  the  regularity  of  domestic 
architecture  is  at  least  partly  atoned  for  by  the 
wide,  sweet  gardens  behind  the  houses.  The  effect 
of  Amaurot,  the  chief  city,  would  be  not  unlike 
that  of  the  Paris  of  the  Second  Empire. 


THE  UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     69 

The  question,  however,  of  the  charms  of  Uto- 
pian life  involves  more  than  a  consideration  of 
details.  It  is  essentially  the  question  always 
asked  about  socialistic  schemes.  To  face  it  at  all 
frankly,  we  must  put  ourselves  at  the  point  of 
view  of  the  individual  Utopian.  There  is  no  use 
in  taking  a  bird's-eye  view  of  society  as  a  whole 
and  announcing  that  the  uniformity  of  conditions 
removes  variety  from  life  and  makes  it  dull.  So- 
cial architecture,  literal  or  metaphorical,  was  not 
planned  for  men  that  live  in  the  air.  And  men 
who  walk  the  streets  see  not  the  whole,  but  what 
meets  one  pair  of  eyes.  Would  the  average  Uto- 
pian find  life  more  or  less  stimulating  than  the 
average  American? 

If  we  are  to  strike  an  average,  we  must  remem- 
ber the  dreary,  expansive  monotony  of  conditions 
that  envelops  to-day  the  wage-earning  population, 
the  appalling  absence  of  variety  in  the  homes  they 
live  in,  the  factories  they  work  in,  the  pursuits 
they  follow.  The  advantages  of  the  vaunted  pic- 
turesqueness  and  variety  of  a  competitive  civiliza- 
tion with  distinctions  of  rank  are  assuredly  confined 
to  the  minority ;  for  the  monotony  of  the  lives  of 
the  working-people  is  broken  by  little  change 
except  the  fact,  or  fear,  of  unemployment.  The 
life  of  the  privileged  would  have  to  be  intensely 
full  of  interest  to-day,  if  the  general  average  were 
to  be  in  favor  of  modern  conditions.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
millionaire,  however  hard-hearted,  gets  much  un- 
alloyed pleasure  from  contemplating  the  other 


70      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

extreme  of  the  social  scale ;  just  as  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  denizen  of  the  East  Side  is  roused  to 
any  special  exertion  by  his  consciousness  of  the 
remote  glories  of  Fifth  Avenue.  A  man's  char- 
acter is  formed  by  conditions  within  his  range,  not 
by  a  general  intuition  of  society  as  a  whole. 

Social  conditions  in  More's  ideal  land  present, 
when  analyzed,  considerable  variety.  The  Utopia 
is  not  indeed  a  country  with  widely  separated 
social  extremes ;  but  it  is  not  a  state  of  social 
equality,  —  misleading  phrase  !  It  is  a  state  of 
equal  social  opportunity :  the  only  approach  to 
equality  that  a  sane  reason  can  entertain.  Men 
start  alike  in  this  state ;  they  by  no  means  end 
alike.  More  recognizes  differences  in  rank  :  princes, 
graded  rulers,  priests,  men  of  learning.  The  pro- 
cession of  these  offices  is  determined  not  by  inherit- 
ance, but  by  manifested  gifts ;  all,  except  that  of 
prince,  are  open  to  ambitious,  competent,  and  vir- 
tuous citizens.  The  men  who  hold  them  are  exempt 
from  manual  labor,  and  form,  if  they  choose,  a 
leisure  class.  In  this  theory  of  the  equal  start, 
the  root-idea  of  the  Utopia,  More  anticipates  the 
Jacobinism  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
teachings  of  Rousseau ;  in  the  application  of  it,  he 
is  ahead  of  all  but  the  most  advanced  democracy 
of  our  own  day.  He  lived  at  the  beginning  of  an 
epoch  to  number  its  centuries ;  past  their  dim 
vistas,  his  prophetic  eyes  followed  the  track  of  the 
dawn. 

Among  his  Utopians  as  a  whole,  More  allows 
for  much  freedom  of  inclination  and  development. 


THE   UTOPIA    OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     71 

Each  child  is  to  choose  his  trade,  as  with  us,  after 
the  common  training  in  country  life  has  been 
received;  and,  we  may  add,  with  less  distressful 
pressure  of  haste  and  fewer  limitations  in  outlook. 
Work  finished,  the  Utopians  are  supplied  with  as 
much  variety  of  resource  as  a  people  so  alert  for 
abstractions  could  demand.  More  is  sure  that 
they  will  attend  their  lectures  before  breakfast, 
though  he  admits  that  exceptions  to  this  enthusi- 
asm may  be  found.  Meanwhile  they  have  music, 
games,  travel,  domestic  life,  as  well  as  study.  If 
the  fear  of  material  need  takes  with  it,  as  it  van- 
ishes, one  element  of  excitement,  a  plenty  of  other 
vicissitudes  remain ;  and  abundant  opportunities 
for  romance  exist  in  the  vigorous  ease  and  free- 
dom of  the  social  conditions. 

But  it  is  when  the  friend  of  Erasmus  treats 
of  the  philosophy  and  religion  of  the  Utopians 
that  he  shows  most  eager  enthusiasm,  and  brings 
us  into  most  curious  sympathy  with  that  singular 
people.  In  the  communal  life,  religion  plays  a 
mighty  part,  as  ritual,  as  doctrine,  and  as  conduct. 
Much  in  his  thought  and  plans  More  derives  from 
the  still  Catholic  civilization  of  England;  for  a 
larger  part  he  depends  on  his  own  thought,  and, 
loyal  son  of  the  Church  that  he  is,  utters  words  so 
ringing  with  the  note  of  religious  freedom  that 
they  can  never  be  forgotten,  Utopus  "  left  men 
wholly  to  their  liberty,  that  they  might  be  free  to 
believe  as  they  should  see  cause,"  with  one  restric- 
tion, that  men  who  disbelieve  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  shall  be  raised  to  no  public  office ;  yet 


72      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

even  these  are  pitied  instead  of  punished,  for 
"they  lay  this  down  as  a  maxim," — and  the  Chris- 
tian world  has  barely  to-day  learned  to  agree  with 
them,  —  "  that  a  man  cannot  make  himself  believe 
anything  he  pleases."  Perfect  religious  freedom 
reigning,  Utopia  develops  as  many  sects  as  Amer- 
ica; with  the  difference  that  there  is  one  state- 
religion,  shrined  in  magnificent  temples,  where  all, 
whatever  their  persuasions,  meet  to  worship  by 
impressive  rite  that  Divine  Essence  whom  all 
equally  adore. 

More  has  thought  much  on  the  priesthood. 
"Their  priests,"  he  tells  us  with  delicate  irony, 
"  are  men  of  eminent  piety,  and  therefore  they  are 
but  few."  Women  are  occasionally  made  priests, 
More  here,  as  everywhere,  recognizing  the  equality 
of  the  sexes.  He  plans  for  two  orders  in  the  priest- 
hood. One,  celibate  and  aesthetic,  renounces  ut- 
terly the  earth,  hoping  only  for  the  joys  of  heaven ; 
theirs  is  the  Catholic  ideal.  The  other,  "less 
willing  to  put  themselves  to  much  toil,  prefer  a 
married  state  to  a  single  one,"  and  in  the  cheer- 
ful common-sense  of  their  religion  anticipate  the 
standards  of  the  Protestant  clergy.  "  The  Uto- 
pians," says  More,  "  look  upon  these  as  the  wiser 
sect,  but  they  esteem  the  other  as  the  most  holy."  1 

Taking  into  account  the  varying  resources  with 
which  More  provides  his  people,  it  is  impossible 
to  avoid  the  impression  that  we  have  here  a  sin- 
gularly noble  picture  of  a  social  state  wholesome, 
sweet,  and  sane.  Life  in  Utopia,  neither  stifled 

1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p.  156. 


THE   UTOPIA   OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     73 

by  luxury  nor  starved  by  want,  could  find  free 
expression.  It  is  invigorated,  not  by  conflict  with 
artificial  conditions,  but  by  the  ceaseless  normal 
struggle  of  the  body  to  subdue  the  earth  to  fertil- 
ity, and  of  the  spirit  to  conquer  truth.  A  just 
criticism  of  More's  thought  will  emphasize  less  the 
artistic  omissions  so  easily  supplied  than  a  failure 
to  record  the  ceaseless  flux  of  social  forms,  a  cer- 
tain immobility  in  his  ideal  civilization,  inevitable, 
perhaps,  in  the  work  of  a  thinker  who  lived  too 
soon  to  realize  evolution.  But  the  picture  drawn 
by  Hythloday,  whatever  its  defects,  is  more  charged 
with  intellectual  and  spiritual  suggestions  than 
that  of  any  social  dreamer  in  England  before  or 
since. 


Hythloday  is  a  figment,  Utopia  a  myth.  Behind 
Raphael  the  traveler  lurks  More  the  Englishman, 
and  Utopia  is  but  England  reversed.  A  constant 
satire  on  the  actual  state  of  things  plays  through 
the  constructive  imagery  of  the  book.  Often  this 
satire  is  veiled,  as  in  the  brilliant  and  much-mis- 
understood section  on  War  ;  but  toward  the  end,  it 
rises  into  direct,  vigorous,  sad  denunciation.  No 
more  impressive  arraignment  of  society  exists  than 
the  last  few  pages  of  the  "  Utopia."  Putting  aside 
disguises,  More  here  speaks  out  his  whole  great 
mind  :  — 

"  I  would  gladly  hear  any  man  compare  the 
justice  that  is  among  them  with  that  of  all  other 
nations  :  among  whom  may  I  perish  if  I  see  any- 


74      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

thing  that  looks  either  like  justice  or  equity  :  for 
what  justice  is  there  in  this,  that  a  nobleman,  a 
goldsmith,  a  banker,  or  any  other  man  that  either 
does  nothing  at  all,  or  at  best  is  employed  in  things 
that  are  of  no  use  to  the  public,  should  live  in 
great  luxury  and  splendor  on  what  is  so  ill  ac- 
quired ;  and  a  mean  man,  a  carter,  a  smith,  or  a 
ploughman,  that  works  harder  even  than  the 
beasts  themselves,  and  is  employed  in  labors  so 
necessary  that  no  commonwealth  could  hold  out  a 
year  without  them,  can  only  earn  so  poor  a  liveli- 
hood, and  must  lead  so  miserable  a  life,  that  the 
condition  of  the  beasts  is  much  better  than  theirs  ? 
For  as  the  beasts  do  not  work  so  constantly,  so 
they  feed  almost  as  well,  and  with  more  pleasure  : 
and  have  no  anxiety  about  what  is  to  come,  whilst 
these  men  are  depressed  by  a  barren  and  fruitless 
employment,  and  tormented  with  the  apprehensions 
of  want  in  their  old  age ;  since  that  which  they  get 
by  their  daily  labor  does  but  maintain  them  at 
present,  and  is  consumed  as  fast  as  it  comes  in, 
there  is  no  overplus  left  to  lay  up  for  old  age. 

"  Is  not  that  government  both  unjust  and  un- 
grateful, that  is  so  prodigal  of  its  favors  to  those 
that  are  called  gentlemen,  or  goldsmiths,  or  such 
others  who  are  idle,  or  live  either  by  flattery,  or 
by  contriving  the  arts  of  vain  pleasure ;  and  on 
the  other  hand  takes  no  care  of  those  of  a  meaner 
sort,  such  as  ploughmen,  colliers,  and  smiths;  with- 
out whom  it  could  not  subsist  ?  .  .  . 

"  Therefore  I  must  say  that,  as  I  hope  for  mercy, 
I  can  have  no  other  notion  of  all  the  other  govern- 


THE   UTOPIA    OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     75 

ments  that  I  see  or  know,  but  that  they  are  a  con- 
spiracy of  the  rich,  who  on  pretense  of  managing 
the  public,  only  pursue  their  private  ends,  and 
devise  all  the  ways  and  arts  they  can  find  out ;  first 
that  they  may  without  danger  preserve  all  that 
they  have  so  ill  acquired,  and  then  that  they  may 
engage  the  poor  to  toil  and  labor  for  them  at  as 
low  rates  as  possible  and  oppress  them  as  much  as 
they  please.  And  if  they  can  but  prevail  to  get 
these  contrivances  established  by  the  show  of  pub- 
lic authority,  which  is  considered  as  the  represent- 
ative of  the  whole  people,  then  they  are  accounted 
laws." ! 

These  trenchant  sentences  have  the  distinct  ring 
of  the  modern  social  democracy.  They  vibrate 
with  that  indignant  sympathy  with  the  working- 
people  which  underlies  the  serene  calin  of  the 
"  Utopia." 

More  feels,  as  a  modern  writer  might,  the  dead- 
ening and  materializing  influence  of  the  pursuit 
for  money,  and  the  expansion  of  higher  ambitions 
which  might  instantly  follow,  if  that  great  anxiety 
were  removed.  Finally,  he  is  deeply  impressed 
with  the  conviction  that  pride,  and  pride  alone,  is 
at  the  root  of  social  inequalities  :  "  For  this  vice 
does  not  measure  happiness  so  much  by  its  own  »\\«. 
conveniences,  as  by  the  miseries  of  others  ;  and 
would  not  be  satisfied  with  being  thought  a  god- 
dess,  if  none  were  left  that  were  miserable,  over 
whom  she  might  insult."  In  these  grave  words,  we 
seem  to  hear  the  sentence  pronounced  upon  that 

1  Ideal  Commonwealths,  p. 


76      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

haughty  feudal  civilization,  with  its  graded  honors 
and  functions,  which  was  just  passing  away  ;  we 
hear,  alas !  no  less  a  prophetic  judgment  upon  that 
commercial  society  which,  when  More  wrote,  was 
rising  from  the  old,  and,  like  its  predecessor,  was 
to  take  centuries  to  run  its  course. 

Yet  satire  and  invective  are  not  the  chief 
strength  of  the  "Utopia;"  through  its  irony  plays 
an  irrepressible  hope.  It  is  in  vain  that  More 
ends  with  a  wistful  sigh  :  "  There  are  many  things 
in  the  Commonwealth  of  Utopia  that  I  rather 
wish  than  hope  to  see  practiced  in  our  Govern- 
ment." We  feel  throughout  that  these  are  the 
dreams  of  a  man  full  of  the  sense  of  power,  confi- 
dent alike  in  the  intelligence  and  the  ability  of 
human  nature,  and  deeply  and  solemnly  impressed 
with  that  mutability  in  human  affairs  which,  as  it 
may  induce  a  mood  of  depression  and  indolence, 
may  also  in  different  temperaments  stimulate  to 
high  and  buoyant  courage.  The  masterful  instinct 
of  the  Renascence  plays  through  the  book  and  in- 
vigorates it.  More  has  indeed  no  expectation  of 
immediate  change,  but  he  sees,  as  Plato  saw  be- 
fore him,  an  entire  nation  living  under  conditions 
of  wholesome  freedom  ;  and  so  vivid  is  the  picture 
that  it  works  conviction  in  his  mind. 

A  new  revelation  must  indeed  have  dawned  on 
men  between  the  work  of  Langland,  so  acquiescent 
with  all  its  courage,  and  that  of  More,  so  revo- 
lutionary in  spite  of  its  statesman-like  experience. 
To  the  singer  of  the  Plowman,  existing  condi- 
tions are  immutable  facts  :  "  As  things  have  been, 


they  remain,"  and  only  from  the  self-abnegation 
of  the  Cross  and  its  followers  does  a  ray  of  light 
shine  down  the  twilight  of  the  world.  Social 
regeneration  Langland  can  earnestly  demand,  but 
social  reconstruction  lies  out  of  the  scope  of  his 
most  daring  speculation.  In  More,  the  age  of 
patience  has  passed  away,  and  the  age  of  hope 
has  arisen.  Langland  reveals  to  us  the  heart  of 
the  laborer ;  More  sets  before  us  his  picture  of  the 
perfect  state.  Social  radicals  always  tend  to  the 
attitude  of  one  of  these,  our  first  two  social  pro- 
phets. Some  delight  in  sweeping  theories,  and 
image  for  themselves,  with  wide-reaching  intellec-  f  \ 
tual  ardor,  a  new  earth  where  human  intelligence 
shall  at  last  achieve  for  all  men  a  state  of  justice, 
freedom,  and  peace.  Others,  no  less  ardent,  can- 
not escape  the  conviction  that  the  world  will 
always  go  on  its  old  way.  They  see  the  Holy  City 
as  a  perpetual  Becoming,  ever  descending,  as  the 
Seer  in  Patmos  beheld  it,  from  heaven  to  men : 

^*"x«_      J 

never  quite  established  here  below.  All  the  more 
fervently  do  they  summon  individuals  to  become 
here  and  now  citizens  of  that  Heavenly  City,  to 
renounce  the  world  and  the  lust  thereof,  and  to 
give  themselves  to  the  fellowship  and  service  that 
abide.  The  two  positions  are  both  common  among 
us  to-day :  nor  is  there  much  use  in  discussing  their 
relative  truth  or  value,  so  long  as  the  ideals  of 
both  remain  equally  unrealized. 

Meanwhile,  we  can  hardly  go  wrong  in  ascrib- 
ing the  new  freedom  and  the  widened  reach  of 
thought  in  the  "  Utopia  "  to  the  infusion  of  Hel- 


78      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 


V 


lenism  brought  by  the  New  Learning  ;  nor  can  we 
regret  the  enlargement,  with  its  stimulating  power. 
And  yet,  in  placing  exclusive  emphasis  on  the 
formative  influences  of  the  classics  over  More's 
mind,  we  run  danger  of  injustice  both  to  his  per- 
sonality and  to  his  thought.  Other  influences,  of 
a  type  wholly  different  from  those  which  could  ema- 
nate from  Hellas,  were  at  work  in  the  noble  and 
holy  character  of  the  man  who  daily  repeated  in 
his  private  chapel  the  Litany  and  Suffrages,  wore 
a  hair-shirt  next  his  skin,  was  drawn  powerfully  to 
the  monastic  vocation,  and  was  to  die  a  Catholic 
martyr  and  be  sainted  by  the  Catholic  Church. 

The  social  bearings  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  are 
discerned,  or  at  least  proclaimed,  with  more  cour- 
age in  the  "  Utopia  "  than  in  the  "  Vision  of  Piers 
the  Plowman."  More  strikes  the  Christian  note 
at  the  very  beginning  ;  he  converts  his  Utopians 
to  Christianity  with  amazing  willingness  through 
their  swift  perception  of  its  communistic  ideal  ; 
and  the  superb  conclusion  of  the  book  shows  how 
deeply  he  believed  that  in  demanding  a  new  social 
order  he  was  fulfilling  the  will  and  following  the 
authority  of  Christ's  commands  :  "  Who  as  He 
was  infinitely  wise  knew  what  was  best,  and  would 
have  drawn  all  the  world  over  to  the  laws  of  the 
Utopians  if  Pride,  that  plague  of  human  nature, 
that  source  of  so  much  misery,  did  not  hinder  it." 
To  realize  how  much  deeper  his  Christianity  lay 
than  mere  specific  allusions,  we  have  but  to  com- 
pare the  gracious  commonwealth  of  Utopia  with 
its  harsh  and  military  prototype  in  Plato's  Repub- 


THE  UTOPIA    OF  SIR   THOMAS  MORE     79 

lie.  Plato's  state  is  sternly  military.  His  com- 
munistic regulations  are  confined  to  the  upper 
class,  while  the  lower  orders,  presupposed,  are  all 
but  ignored ;  and  communism  is  extended  to  the 
destruction  of  the  family.  In  More,  the  spirit  of 
love  illumines  that  severe  Justice  which  was  the 
quest  of  the  old  philosopher,  and  the  Greek  and 
pagan  dream  becomes  Christian  and  English. 

The  truth  is  that  More  lived  at  a  fortunate 
moment.  The  individualism  of  the  Renascence 
had  not  yet  gone  so  far  in  its  enthusiasm  for  earth 
as  to  forget  heaven,  and  the  clash  of  the  secular 
against  the  religious  ideal  was  as  yet  unheard. 
With  equal  reverence,  More  could  seek  for  wis- 
dom from  the  clear  thought  of  antiquity  or  from 
the  ardent  aspirations  of  the  Church  ;  and  words 
from  Christ  and  from  Plato  might  rest  side  by  side 
on  his  pages,  in  tranquil  harmony.  Such  harmony 
could  not  endure  :  a  great  conflict  was  impending. 
It  came  in  matters  religious  first ;  and  till  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  theological  controversy 
diverted  thought  from  the  quieter  dwelling  on 
matters  economic  and  social.  But  we  may  surely 
welcome  this  noble  and  melodious  book,  in  which 
the  free  and  unfettered  play  of  thought  on  social 
questions  betrays  the  sense  of  power  and  respon- 
sibility which  was  creating  the  Reformation,  and 
prophesies  a  time  when  the  Reformation  should 
have  done  its  perfect  work,  and  men,  free  in  their 
relations  to  God,  could  turn  their  whole  ardor  into 
seeking  for  freedom  in  their  relations  with  one 
another. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE   AGE   OF   JONATHAN   SWIFT 


THE  ideal  of  social  reconstruction  dominates 
the  "  Utopia ;  "  and  intellectual  achievement  and 
religious  freedom  proceed  as  natural,  incidental 
consequence  from  the  industrial  conditions  and 
democratic  institutions  which  More  suggests.  But 
the  line  of  advance  was  not  to  be  that  which  he 
dreamed.  Three  centuries  and  a  half  were  to 
pass  before  his  social  ideals  were  to  be  echoed. 
These  centuries  were  among  the  greatest  in  English 
story  ;  they  achieved  mighty  gains  for  humanity  ; 
but  the  evolution  of  social  passion  and  social  theory 
was  not  their  task.  That  task  was  the  conquest 
of  political  and  religious  liberty  for  England. 

For  generations  after  More's  day,  one  phase  or 
another  of  religious  controversy  absorbed  all  powers 
of  speculation  and  many  powers  of  life.  The  first 
phase  was  the  struggle  between  Romanism  and  the 
native  Anglican  Church.  The  fires  at  Smithfield, 
which  More  might  have  lived  to  see,  died  down, 
and  with  them  sank  forever  the  supremacy  of  the 
Roman  Church  in  England.  Meanwhile,  the  coun- 
try of  Elizabeth  had  enough  to  do  without  handling 
economic  problems.  The  swift  increase  in  mate- 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT          81 

rial  prosperity  threw  such  problems  into  the  back- 
ground at  an  early  point  in  the  reign.  The  jolly 
Prentices  of  poem  and  drama  led  a  care-free  life. 
They  had  a  sturdy  sense  of  English  independ- 
ence, but  little  discontent  with  their  lot;  they 
shared  the  joyousness  of  the  times  and  that  new 
national  consciousness,  fostered  by  foes  without 
and  the  sense  of  power  within,  which  was  in  itself 
an  achievement  great  enough  for  one  generation. 
Of  social  unrest  the  literature  of  this  period  bears 
little  trace. 

In  its  earlier   moods,  to  be  sure,  the   pastoral 
strain  sounds  loud  and  contented  and  sweet :  *  — 

"  Who  can  live  in  heart  so  glad 
As  the  merry  country  lad  ? 
Who  upon  a  fair  green  baulk 
May  at  pleasure  sit  and  walk  ? 
And  amid  the  azure  skies 
See  the  morning  sun  arise  ? 
While  he  hears  in  every  spring 
How  the  birds  do  chirp  and  sing  ; 
Or  before  the  hounds  in  cry 
See  the  hares  go  stealing  by  ; 

Then  the  bee  to  gather  honey  ; 
And  the  little  black-haired  coney 
On  a  bank  for  sunny  place 
With  her  fore-feet  wash  her  face  ; 
Are  not  these  worth  thousands  moe 
Than  the  courts  of  kings  do  know  ?  " 

But  the  "  merry  country  lad,"  if  we  follow  his 
story  in  "  Arcadia,"  or  the  "  Faerie  Queene,"  or  the 
"  Shepherd's  Calendar,"  proves  always  to  be  knight 
or  poet  in  disguise,  and  his  Aglaia,  Philoclea, 
1  Nicholas  Breton,  The  Passionate  Pilgrim. 


82      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Pastorella,  is  a  lass  of  high  degree,  who  keeps 
her  flocks  as  pastime  or  prelude,  before  her  dainty 
graces  are  restored  to  her  native  court. 

Even  the  drama,  popular  in  origin  and  appeal, 
shows  few  popular  sympathies  ;  one  may  search  it 
almost  in  vain  for  democratic  sentiments  or  social 
inspiration.  The  mob  doth  dearly  love  a  king ; 
and  on  the  Elizabethan  stage,  high-born  lords 
and  ladies  were  the  only  people  in  whose  fate  a 
serious  interest  could  be  taken.  The  others  only 
furnished  the  jokes,  and  Bottom,  Quince,  Gobbo, 
Dogberry,  and  the  rest,  very  likely  roared  with 
laughter  at  the  antics  of  their  prototypes  on  the 
stage.  It  is  true  that  the  lightsome  domestic 
drama  of  Heywood  and  Dekker  gives  us  charming 
pictures  of  homely  life,  and  suggests  at  times,  as 
in  Heywood's  Master  Shore  of  "  King  Edward 
the  Fourth,"  the  sense  for  the  dignity  of  the  mid- 
dle class ;  but  the  "  Foure  Prentices  of  London," 
who  make  their  jolly  way  to  the  wars  and  turn  up 
at  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  as  crowned  heroes,  are 
the  sons  of  a  disguised  earl  in  the  good  old  fashion. 
Their  adventures  and  the  gay  intrigue  of  Dekker's 
"  Shoemaker's  Holiday,"  and  of  that  curious,  rol- 
licking forerunner  of  the  spirit  of  Burns  and  Gay, 
Richard  Broome's  "  Merry  Beggars,"  are  in  the 
pure  style  of  light  opera,  and  valuable  only  as  wit- 
nessing to  the  growth  of  conventional  class-types. 
A  note  of  sweet  compassion  for  the  poor  is  struck 
now  and  again  in  the  old  drama. 

"  It  takes  away  the  holy  use  of  charity 
To  examine  wants,"  — 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT         83 

says  Alinda,  in  Fletcher's  "  Pilgrim  :  "  but  charity 
itself  is  conventional.  The  social  problems,  found 
by  the  modern  stage  so  fertile  in  dramatic  motifs, 
the  Elizabethans  recked  not  of. 

One  can  hardly  exaggerate  the  aristocratic  char- 
acter of  Elizabethan  literature.  It  is  aristocratic 
in  a  noble  sense  ;  it  proceeds  from  the  noble  court 
of  Elizabeth,  and  "  courtliness  "  is  the  word  that 
expresses  it  best.  The  keynote  is  struck  at  the 
very  outset,  in  that  quaint,  high-minded  book, 
Lyly's  "  Euphues  :  "  "  Gentlemen,"  says  a  rever- 
end personage,  accosting  two  young  gallants,  Eu- 
phues and  Philautus,  "  Gentlemen  —  for  such  I 
perceive  ye  to  be  by  your  carriage,  and  ye  can 
be  no  more,  being  but  men."  From  this  time  to 
the  time  of  Hooker  and  Bacon,  in  all  literature, 
even  to  the  little  lyric  cries  that  lilt  with  sudden 
sweetness  through  grave  deliberations  and  patri- 
otic fervors,  the  quest  is  the  same :  the  fashioning 
a  new  type  of  heroism,  learned  and  peaceful,  which 
replaces  the  primitive  and  unlettered  type  of  the 
mediaeval  knight.  We  see  the  hero  in  relation  to 
his  queen,  to  his  country,  to  his  church,  to  his  love  : 
in  all  these  relations,  we  learn  what  an  ideal  gen- 
tleman should  be. 

In  persons,  the  age  produced  Sir  Philip  Sidney ; 
in  poetry,  Spenser's  "  Faerie  Queene."  The  one 
lived  what  the  other  sung,  —  the  ideal  of  perfect 
knighthood,  made  gentler,  wider,  because  translated 
into  terms  of  contemporary  life.  Spenser's  poetry 
is  the  very  mirror  of  the  times  at  their  best.  Its 
bright  and  chivalric  spirit  scorns  money  as  much 


84      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

as  it  cherishes  what  money  brings.  Listen  to  Sir 
Guyon,  knight  of  Temperance,  tempted  in  the  cave 
of  Mammon  by  piles  of  glistening  lucre  :  — 

"  Me  ill  besits   that  in  der-doing  annes 
And  honours'  suit  my  vowed  dales  do  spend, 
Unto  thy  bounteous  baytes  and  pleasing  charmes, 
With  which  weake  men  thou  witchest,  to  attend ; 
Regard  of  worldly  mucke  doth  fowly  blend, 
And  low  abase  the  high  heroicke  spright, 
That  joyes  for  crownes  and  kingdomes  to  contend ; 
Faire  shields,  gay  steedes,  bright  annes  be  my  delight ; 
These  be  the  riches  fit  for  an  advent'rous  knight."  1 

Guyon  has  little  to  answer  to  Mammon's  obvious 
retort  that  these  attractive  matters  are  hardly  to 
be  had  without  his  help  ;  yet  Spenser  evidently 
thinks  that  the  knight  has  the  best  of  the  argu- 
ment. The  "  raskell  many  "  intrude  as  seldom  on 
the  consciousness  of  the  poet  as  on  the  ways  of  his 
wandering  knights ;  but  a  shade  of  haughtiness 
darkens  his  courtesy  whenever  social  distinctions 
occur  to  him. 

"  In  brave  poursuitt  of  honorable  deed, 
There  is  I  know  not  what  great  difference 
Betweene  the  vulgar  and  the  noble  seed,"  2  — 

he  cries.  In  the  fifth  book,  Sir  Artegall,  cham- 
pion of  Justice,  meets  a  giant  of  Communism  who 
wishes  to  weigh  the  sea  and  land  in  his  balances, 
and  distribute  them  more  evenly. 

"  Therefore  I  will  throw  downe  these  mountaines  hie, 
And  make  them  levell  with  the  lowly  plaine  ; 
These  towring  rocks,  which  reach  unto  the  skie, 
I  will  thrust  downe  into  the  deepest  maine, 
And,  as  they  were,  them  equalize  againe. 

1  Faerie  Queene,  book  ii.  canto  vii.  st.  x. 

2  Ibid.,  book  ii.  canto  iv.  st.  i. 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT          85 

Tyrants,  that  make  men  subject  to  their  law, 

I  -will  suppresse,  that  they  no  more  may  raine ; 

And  Lordings  curbe  that  commons  over-aw, 

And  all  the  wealth  of  rich  men  to  the  poore  will  draw."  1 

The  crowd  listen  to  him  with  rapture  :  — 

"  Like  foolish  flies  about  an  hony-crocke  ; 
In  hope  by  him  great  benefite  to  gaine, 
And  uncontrolled  freedome  to  obtaine."  2 

The  giant  is  not  a  dangerous  foe  ;  the  ridicule 
which  Spenser  casts  at  him  shows  that  the  Eliza- 
bethan poet  felt  it  quite  needless  to  put  a  serious 
construction  on  his  antics.  Sir  Artegall  has  no 
trouble  at  all  in  answering  his  arguments  ;  and  as 
with  much  satisfaction  to  himself  the  knight  de- 
monstrates that  equality  produced  to-day  would  be 
inequality  to-morrow,  he  utters  a  line  which  shows 
the  attitude  of  Spenser  and  of  his  age  to  all  radical 
social  changes.  "  All  chance  is  perilous  and  all 
change  unsound,"  3  says  Sir  Artegall. 

No  one  can  read  the  "  Faerie  Queene,"  no  one 
can  know  the  Elizabethans,  and  regret  the  pride  of 
rank  in  that  great  period.  It  had  a  work  to  do : 
to  exalt  the  ideal  of  character  higher  than  ever 
before  ;  to  raise  such  a  standard  of  magnificent 
manhood  that  the  English-speaking  race  could 
never  be  content  with  a  vulgar  average  life.  We 
in  America  have  unconsciously  higher  intuitions 
because  Sidney  lived  and  Spenser  flashed  his 
vision  of  Arthur  the  Magnificent,  of  St.  George, 

1  Faerie  Queene,  book  v.  canto  ii.  st.  xxxviii. 

2  Ibid.,  at.  xxxiii. 
8  Ibid.,  st.  xxxvi. 


86      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

and  of  Sir  Artegall,  upon  the  world.  The  work  was 
done,  and  the  ideal  of  courtliness  is  one  which 
social  evolution,  though  it  develop  in  forms  of  the 
most  advanced  democracy,  can  never  afford  to  lose. 

II 

The  seventeenth  century  had  a  wholly  different 
task.  It  witnessed  the  rise  of  the  middle  class, 
and  it  conquered  political  freedom.  These  great 
phenomena  were  both  involved  in  the  religious 
struggle  and  subordinate  to  it.  That  struggle  had 
changed  its  aspect,  but  deepened  if  anything  its 
intensity ;  it  was  no  longer  between  Romanist  and 
Protestant,  it  opposed  Puritanism  to  the  widely 
differing  ideal  of  the  Anglican  Church.  For  the 
central  years  of  the  epoch,  Puritanism  reigned,  and 
reigned  as  a  leveling  power.  It  brought  in  its 
train  a  scorn  of  earthly  kings,  a  contempt  for  vain 
human  distinctions  ;  and  it  brought  the  grim  deter- 
mination to  conquer  freedom  and  to  govern  Eng- 
land through  the  will  of  godly  citizens,  not  through 
the  whims  of  the  man  Charles  Stuart.  An  immense 
force  of  democracy  was  latent  in  Puritanism.  The 
citizen  supplanted  the  courtier  as  the  courtier  had 
supplanted  the  knight.  For  once,  an  antithesis  of 
Macaulay's  is  true :  "  He  humbled  himself  in  the 
dust  before  his  Maker  ;  but  he  set  his  foot  on  the 
neck  of  his  King." 

But  in  spite  of  its  grim  republican  passion,  the 
contribution  of  Puritanism  to  social  literature  is 
curiously  slight.  No  Langland  and  no  More  spoke 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  passion  of  the 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT         87 

time  expressed  itself  rather  in  deeds  than  in  books : 
Dainty  songs  for  cavaliers  and  Anglican  divines ; 
sermons,  prayers,  and  swords  for  the  protectors  of 
the  Commonweal.  The  passion  for  secular  free- 
dom was  purely  to  the  end  of  the  attainment  of 
religious  freedom;  and  hatred  of  the  tyranny  of 
kings,  rather  than  compassion  for  the  sufferings 
of  the  poor,  was  the  mood  of  the  time.  The  social 
equality  which  Puritanism  for  the  first  time  fos- 
tered was  not  in  any  sense  a  deliberate  aim,  but  an 
unconscious  result  of  the  temper  which  realized  the 
nakedness  of  all  souls  before  God. 

The  double  achievement  of  the  age  is  clearly 
mirrored  in  the  work  of  two  great  Puritans,  Mil- 
ton and  Bunyan.  "  The  sacred  Milton  was,  let  it 
ever  be  remembered,  a  Republican,"  wrote  Shel- 
ley, and  this  is  memorable  and  true.  Yet  in  Mil- 
ton, the  glorious  plea  for  religious  and  political 
freedom  is  of  a  haughty  antique  strain  compatible 
with  entire  disregard  of  the  welfare  of  the  masses. 
In  Bunyan's  beautiful  book,  we  have  a  social  docu- 
ment of  the  highest  value,  witnessing  to  the  habits 
and  modes  of  life  of  the  new  burgher-class  with 
a  vivid  simplicity  unsurpassed.  Christian's  house 
and  the  Town  of  Destruction,  Vanity  Fair  with 
its  chaffer  and  gossip,  the  talk  of  the  pilgrims 
by  the  way,  are  the  best  pictures  we  possess  of 
middle-class  life  in  seventeenth  century  England. 
The  very  change  of  centre  since  our  last  great  alle- 
gory, the  "  Faerie  Queene,"  speaks  worlds  in  itself: 
the  ideal  of  virtue,  which  once  found  symbol  in 
twelve  courtly  knights,  is  now  gathered  into  one 


88      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

plain  burgher ;  warfare  Las  given  place  to  pilgrim- 
age, and  for  enchanted  forests,  hermitages,  castles, 
and  distressed  damsels,  we  have  now  a  plain  jour- 
ney across  a  dusty  road,  with  stiles  and  wickets, 
modest  citizen-towns,  and  here  and  there  a  com- 
fortable farm  or  manor  house,  as  setting  to  adven- 
tures, and  only  a  rare  lion  or  giant  to  recall  the 
good  old  days  of  chivalry.  The  rise  of  the  middle 
class  seems  to  bring  with  it  a  new  emphasis  on  the 
home ;  domestic  life  finds  more  beautiful  expres- 
sion in  Bunyan  than  anywhere  in  the  literature  of 
feudalism  or  the  Renascence,  while  as  Christiana's 
family  increases  in  the  second  part,  the  group  of 
pilgrims  furnishes  a  picture  of  Christian  commu- 
nity life,  the  lovely  simplicity  of  which  is  hardly 
equaled  except  in  the  records  of  the  early  Church. 
But  nothing  was  farther  from  Bunyan's  thought 
than  social  delineation.  What  was  society  to  a 
man  who  gazed  shuddering  upon  the  soul  ?  Salva- 
tion was  his  quest ;  the  procedures  of  Vanity  Fair 
were  of  no  interest  except  so  far  as  they  might 
tempt  the  pilgrims  to  deny  their  Lord. 

The  obsession  by  religious  matters  which  marked 
the  seventeenth  century  could  not  be  more  plainly 
seen  than  in  Bunyan.  Put  Milton  by  the  side  of 
Bunyan,  and  we  have  suggested  the  whole  work 
of  the  age  in  the  inner  world  of  mind.  It  was  a 
mighty  achievement.  It  changed  the  centre  of 
interest  from  noble  to  common  man ;  and  it  up- 
lifted the  ideal  of  freedom  into  a  glorious  yet  visi- 
ble light  above  the  heads  of  men,  ever  after  ready 
to  greet  an  upturned  gaze.  All  this  it  did,  and 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT         89 

did  it  wholly  under  the  Christian  impetus.  If  it 
went  no  further,  if  little  actual  distress  over  the 
actual  conditions  of  men  disturbed  it,  we  recognize 
as  reasons  the  very  purity  of  its  idealism,  on  the 
one  hand,  which  viewed  outward  conditions  as 
matters  of  complete  indifference  ;  on  the  other,  the 
law  by  which  one  age  can  speak  one  stanza  only  in 
the  unending  poem  of  the  world. 

The  work  of  the  seventeenth  century  seemed  to 
be  thrown  away.  The  Restoration  followed  the 
Commonwealth ;  Wycherley  and  Congreve  were 
contemporaries  of  Bunyan.  The  centre  of  litera- 
ture veered  back  to  the  court ;  alas,  no  longer  to 
the  court  of  Elizabeth  !  Folly,  frivolity,  intrigue, 
vulgarity  masked  as  delicatesse,  wit  playing  in 
vacuity  like  heat-lightning  in  the  dark,  make  up 
the  Restoration  drama.  The  lack  of  resources  in 
a  society  that  could  compound  such  plots  seems 
to  the  modern  reader  almost  more  tragic  than  its 
wickedness.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  a  reaction, 
to  a  certain  extent,  set  in  ;  it  moved  away  from  the 
ignoble,  but  not  toward  the  ideal ;  it  moved  to- 
ward the  respectable.  We  have  reached  the  age 
of  Pope  and  Addison  and  Steele,  of  Arbuthnot  and 
Clarke  and  Atterbury ;  we  have  reached  the  age 
of  Dean  Swift. 

in 

Approaching  the  eighteenth  century  from  the 
centuries  that  lie  behind  it,  a  modern  man  feels 
for  a  time  singularly  at  home  in  its  literature.  As 
he  roams  through  its  pleasant  and  neatly  ordered 


90      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

ways,  he  meets  people  much  like  himself,  neither 
heroic  beings  like  the  men  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
nor  grave,  if  slightly  grotesque,  Puritans,  but  cul- 
tivated, easy,  well-bred  men  and  women,  with  in- 
terests often  very  similar  to  our  own.  In  turning 
ovep  the  pages  of  old  "  Spectators  "  and  "  Tatlers," 
one  encounters  no  passion,  such  as  sears  mind 
and  heart  in  the  mournful  glory  of  the  Jacobean 
drama ;  people  are  almost  as  suitably  reserved  as 
to-day.  Just  as  with  us,  social  and  literary  criti- 
cism, discussions  of  social  morality,  and  eager  obser- 
vation of  manners  pass  lightly  from  lip  to  lip. 

Yet  below  all  this  outward  likeness,  the  reader 
soon  becomes  aware  of  an  inalienable  difference, 
separating  that  literature  from  our  own  ;  and  in 
time  this  sense  so  grows  on  him  that  he  comes  to 
feel  the  eighteenth  century,  with  its  easy,  superficial 
modernness,  more  remote  from  ourselves  in  essen- 
tial spirit,  in  real  attitude,  than  the  Middle  Ages 
or  the  Renascence.  Carlyle  could  clasp  hands 
more  readily  with  Langland  than  with  Addison  ; 
Matthew  Arnold  would  be  quite  at  ease  on  meet- 
ing More  in  fields  Elysian,  but  even  his  elasticity 
would  be  taxed  to  find  common  ground,  at  least  in 
regard  to  matters  which  may  be  supposed  to  retain 
interest  in  those  regions,  with  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury wit  or  the  eighteenth  century  divine.  The 
modes  of  thought  which  underlie  the  modes  of  man- 
ners in  the  age  of  Queen  Anne  and  of  the  Georges 
are  farther  from  the  modern  democracy  than  any 
logic-line  can  reach. 

To  explain  this  distance  were  to  analyze  the  age ; 


THE  AGE   OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT          91 

but  assuredly  one  cause  for  it  is  found  in  the  narrow 
social  scope  of  eighteenth  century  literature.  In 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  the  com- 
mon people  were,  to  be  sure,  disregarded  by  litera- 
ture ;  but  a  large  and  free  conception  of  humanity 
as  a  whole  was,  after  all,  the  atmosphere  in  which 
Art  moved  and  wrought.  In  the  next  century, 
eyes  were  fastened  on  the  Town.  Court,  drawing- 
room,  coffee-house,  became  the  three  centres  of  exist- 
ence. The  wide,  humorous  background  of  vulgar 
every-day  life,  readily  if  lightly  sketched  by  the 
old  drama,  the  offhand  studies  in  class-types  of 
the  plain  people,  are  suspended:  literature,  for  a 
brief  time,  belongs  wholly  to  the  sophisticated,  and 
shows  a  blank  oblivion  of  the  majority  of  the  race. 
Within  this  narrow  area  it  develops  a  conscious 
interest  in  social  criticism,  a  keen  delight  in  obser- 
vation of  manners  ;  almost  it  may  be  said  to  create 
a  new  art-form,  social  satire.  This  satire  is  at  close 
range ;  when  it  generalizes,  it  is  lost.  It  cannot 
roam  through  the  earth,  watching,  like  Langland's 
grave  spirit,  "  all  manner  of  men,  the  mean  and  the 
rich,  working  and  wandering  as  the  world  asketh." 
It  is  at  home  in  noting  the  foibles,  studying  the  eti- 
quette, ferreting  out  the  animosities  and  intrigues, 
of  a  coterie  of  individuals. 

The  last  century  succeeded  in  a  difficult  task. 
It  untwined  from  all  social  connection  two  great 
interests,  always  before  interwoven  with  the  larger 
human  life.  The  two  were  religion  and  politics. 
It  is  wholly  possible  to  explore  the  intricate  maze 
of  eighteenth  century  statecraft,  or  to  master  the 


92      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

many  ponderous  tomes  of  Anglican  divinity,  and 
find  never  a  hint  at  the  problems  and  phenomena 
which  we  to-day  call  social.  Politics  occupies  itself 
with  wars  and  intrigues  abroad,  with  intrigues  and 
personal  animosities  at  home.  It  is  a  game,  where 
the  cleverest  trickster  beats,  and  personal  ambition 
is  supplemented  by  nothing  nobler  than  party- 
spirit.  The  large  output  of  pamphlets  in  the 
eighteenth  century  contains  work  immensely  supe- 
rior to  that  of  the  prolific  period  of  the  Common- 
wealth in  cleverness,  terseness,  effectiveness ;  but 
from  the  time  of  Algernon  Sidney  to  that  of  Burke, 
it  holds  not  a  breath  of  that  larger  inspiration  and 
passion  which  can  make  a  local  controversy  of  the 
moment  a  treasure  for  all  time. 

It  is  not  unprecedented  to  find  politics  absorbed 
in  cabals  and  conflicts  and  oblivious  to  the  interests 
of  the  people.  But  what  is  surely  almost  unpre- 
cedented in  Christendom  is  the  attitude  of  the 
Anglican  Church  towards  social  matters.  What- 
ever the  faults  of  the  Church,  its  ideal  had  always 
been  clear.  In  the  ages  of  feudalism  it  offered 
the  only  corrective  to  rank  and  the  only  ideal  of 
democracy  ;  Langland,  with  all  his  severe  strictures 
on  the  priesthood,  never  sought  to  turn  elsewhere 
for  social  salvation  and  incentive  than  to  the  gospel 
of  Christ  with  its  message  of  sacrifice  and  poverty. 
More,  at  the  opening  of  the  secular  age,  yet  sum- 
moned Christianity  for  witness,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  to  the  reasonableness  of  abolishing  private 
property.  Through  the  long  rise  and  rule  of  Puri- 
tanism, Christianity,  however  misconceived,  was 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT         93 

assuredly  free  from  worldliness ;  and  our  own  Pil- 
grim Fathers  may  suggest  how  great  an  impetus 
toward  poverty  and  stern  simplicity  of  living  was 
held  in  that  severe  faith.  In  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, the  long  religious  wars  were  seemingly  over ; 
the  Anglican  Church  had  conquered  Romanism ; 
Puritanism  had  sunk  out  of  sight  deep  into  the 
hearts  of  the  ignored  people,  whence  it  was  to  arise 
a  mighty  and  refreshing  stream,  in  the  Wesleyan 
movement.  The  Church  had  won  the  day  and  held 
the  field.  And  the  first  thing  it  did  was  to  repudi- 
ate its  old  relationships.  It  sought  no  wedlock  with 
poverty,  such  as  Francis  sought  and  Giotto  painted 
in  his  great  fresco.  That  patient  Griselda  was 
degraded  to  household  service :  a  new  bride  took 
her  place,  Prosperity,  decorously  arrayed  and  pru- 
dent of  mien. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  understand  the  religion 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  or  would  be,  if  so  much 
of  the  same  type  did  not  linger  among  us.  To  a 
casual  reader  of  the  gospel  it  seems  axiomatic  that 
the  followers  of  Christ  must,  ipso  facto,  be  the 
champions  of  liberty  and  of  the  poor ;  yet  here  we 
find  His  followers,  orthodox  and  sincere,  deliber- 
ately ranking  themselves  as  champions  of  estab- 
lished rights  and  of  the  well-to-do.  The  Church  had 
become  avast  machine,  for  the  patronage  of  moral- 
ity and  the  promotion  of  her  own  officers ;  those 
officers  speak  repeatedly  with  a  candor  unmistak- 
able and  refreshing,  compared  to  the  evasions  not 
unknown  to-day.  How  admirable  an  investment  is 
religion !  Such  is  the  burden  of  their  pleading. 


94      THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Sure  gage  of  respectability  here  and  comfort  here- 
after !  To  turn  over  the  pages  of  their  sermons 
is  to  feel  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  receding  into 
infinite  space.  Here  is  one  of  these  excellent 
discourses  headed  "  Of  the  Wisdom  of  Being  Reli- 
gious." We  read  and  are  almost  won  to  so  courte- 
ous and  comforting  a  gospel ;  though  perhaps  some 
troubling  recollection  drifts  through  our  minds  of  a 
faith  calling  to  sacrifice  and  ending  in  a  Cross.  Not 
this  faith  surely,  for  — "  The  Principal  Point  of 
Wisdom  in  the  Conduct  of  Human  Life  is  so  to  use 
the  Enjoyments  of  this  present  World  as  that  they 
may  not  themselves  shorten  that  Period  wherein 
'tis  allowed  us  to  enjoy  them.  .  .  .  Temperance 
and  Sobriety,  the  regular  governing  of  our  Appe- 
tites  and  Passions,  the  promoting  Peace  and  Good 
Order  in  the  World  are,  even  without  Regard  to 
any  Arguments  of  Religion,  the  greatest  Instances 
of  human  Wisdom;  because  they  are  the  most 
effectual  Means  of  preserving  our  Being  and  Wrell- 
being  in  the  Wrorld ;  of  prolonging  the  Period  and 
enlarging  the  Comforts  and  Enjoyments  of  Life. 
Religion  has  added  Strength  to  these  Considera- 
tions; and  by  annexing  the  Promise  of  God's 
immediate  Blessing  to  the  natural  Tendency  and 
Consequences  of  things,  has  made  the  Wisdom  of 
choosing  Virtue  infinitely  more  conspicuous  and 
the  Folly  of  Vice  more  apparently  absurd."  * 

It  would  be  wrong  to  disparage  the  kindly  com- 
mon sense  and  entire  sincerity  of  eighteenth  century 
religion ;  but  one  may  be  excused  for  finding  in  it 
1  Clarke,  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  Sermon  XVII. 


> 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT          95 

few  reminiscences  of  the  Gospels.  The  perplexity 
of  the  honest  eighteenth  century  divine,  wrestling 
with  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  is  entertaining 
and  instructive.  "We  are  not  obliged,"  says  the 
worthy,  "  to  seek  the  Kingdom  of  God  wholly  or 
only  in  a  total  and  absolute  Exclusion  of  all  other 
desires  (as  some  melancholy  well-disposed  persons 
may  be  apt  to  imagine),  but  only  that  we  are  to 
seek  it  chiefly  and  in  the  first  place."  And  finally 
the  whole  matter  of  our  social  duty  is  comfortably 
summed  up.  We  are  required  "  only  to  retrench 
our  vain  and  foolish  expenses ;  not  to  sell  all  and 
give  to  the  poor,  but  to  be  charitable  out  of  the 
superfluity  of  our  plenty ;  not  to  lay  down  our  lives 
or  even  the  comfortable  enjoyments  of  life,  but  to 
forsake  the  unreasonable  and  unfruitful  pleasures 
of  sin." 1  Such,  amid  discourses  on  the  Installa- 
tion of  the  Lord  Mayor  and  the  Anniversary  of  the 
Death  of  Charles  the  Martyr,  are  the  reassuring 
remarks  of  eighteenth  century  divinity. 

One  would  suppose  that  this  century  must  have 
been  an  easy  and  comfortable  age  to  live  in,  but  its 
sons  of  greatest  genius  did  not  seem  to  find  it  such. 
To  gather  in  a  group  the  fates  of  the  chief  men  of 
letters  of  this  age  is  startling  and  painful.  Addi- 
son  died  mildly  as  he  had  lived ;  but  Pope,  tor- 
mented with  hysteria  and  neurotic  woes ;  Collins 
in  an  asylum ;  Gray,  subjugated  by  dumb  melan- 
cholia ;  Johnson,  overwhelmed  periodically  by  the 
same  black  cloud ;  Cowper,  in  his  long  agony ;  —  do 
not  exhaust  the  list  of  men  of  genius  who,  in  a 
1  Clarke,  vol.  i.  p.  212. 


96      THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

period  that  aimed  primarily  at  sanity  and  repressed 
all  idealism  and  enthusiasm  to  the  end  of  that 
achievement,  succumbed  to  some  form  of  mental 
disease.  Of  all  these,  no  fate  is  so  sorrowful  as 
that  of  the  greatest,  saddest  son  of  the  age,  most 
tragic  personality  in  the  long  tale  of  English  letters, 
—  Dean  Swift. 

IV 

We  know  many  private  reasons  for  the  fierce 
melancholy  that  breathes  from  the  great  figure 
of  Swift.  His  hard  youth  of  dependence  led  to 
a  disappointing  career;  four  years  of  power  and 
prosperity  deepened  by  contrast  the  dreariness  of  a 
long  quarter-century  spent,  obscure  and  neglected, 
as  a  practical  exile  in  Ireland.  A  dark  mystery 
shrouded  the  life  of  his  affections :  passionately 
loved  by  women,  even  unto  death,  he  never  married, 
but  maintained  a  harsh  remoteness  from  feminine 
ties,  broken  by  poignant  visitations  of  tenderness. 
Whether  his  strange  attitude  sprang  from  the 
sense  of  an  impending  curse  and  the  unwillingness 
to  perpetuate  it,  whether  there  were  other  secret 
tragic  cause,  we  do  not  know,  but  Swift  lived  a 
lonely  and  disappointed  man,  and  died,  after  years 
of  encroaching  misery  had  deepened  his  dreadful 
expectation,  in  the  horror  of  great  darkness,  in 
madness  of  a  frightful  type. 

It  is  a  sorrowful  history.  Yet  the  essential 
sadness  of  Swift's  life  lay  deeper  than  personal 
experience.  It  was  interwoven  with  the  conditions 
of  his  age.  He  knew  his  times  intimately  and  long : 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT          97 

the  little  world  of  the  great,  the  great  world  of  the 
humble,  the  statesman's  palace,  and  the  peasant's 
hut.  He  was  a  profoundly  sensitive  man,  yet  he 
was  also  matter-of-fact.  His  honest  recognition  of 
things  as  they  were  was  mitigated  by  no  interven- 
ing haze  of  romance,  and  no  spiritual  revelation  of 
distant  hopes.  He  was  no  mystic,  like  Langland, 
visited  by  visions  of  consolation ;  no  philosopher, 
like  More,  able  to  escape  the  sordid  present  by 
weaving  speculative  schemes.  He  took  life  as  he 
found  it,  with  savage  sincerity :  he  saw  it  steadily 
and  saw  it  whole,  if  ever  a  realist  can  attain  such 
vision ;  and  he  saw  it  as  unrelieved  tragedy.  In 
London,  among  the  rich  and  the  eminent,  he  found 
greed,  ambition,  triviality  ruling;  in  Ireland,  he 
witnessed  the  agonizing  and  brutalizing  suffering 
of  the  poor.  His  was  not  a  temperament  to  manu- 
facture ideals  ;  and  the  times  had  no  ideals  to  offer. 
What  wonder  if  fierce  wrath  filled  his  great,  sad 
soul;  if  the  worlds  of  politics,  of  society,  of  the 
great  mass  of  men,  seemed  to  him  equally  contempt- 
ible and  pitiful ;  if  the  only  man  in  the  eighteenth 
century  born  with  something  of  the  temperament 
of  the  prophet  should  have  faced  life  with  the 
prophet's  sorrow,  but  nothing  of  the  prophet's 
vision !  The  social  sarcasm  of  Swift  is  unequaled 
in  fervor  of  ironic  power,  but  is  also  alone  among 
the  chief  satires  of  England  in  the  bitterness  of 
its  tone.  The  terrible  epitaph  which,  by  his  own 
command,  was  placed  over  his  tomb  speaks  of  the 
only  peace  possible  to  him.  He  lies  "ubi  sseva 
indiguatio  cor  ulterius  lacerare  nequit." 


98       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Swift's  satire  plays  in  the  regions  lie  knew  best : 
society,  politics,  and  the  life  of  the  common  people 
of  Ireland.  In  the  first  two  regions,  many  other 
writers  are  as  much  at  home  as  he.  We  can  still 
divert  ourselves  with  the  graceful  archness  of  the 
studies  of  fashionable  life  in  old  "  Spectators " 
and  "  Tatlers,"  we  can  still  smile  with  unfailing 
relish  at  the  neat  satirical  turns  and  playful  mock- 
ery in  which  the  period  delighted.  Social  criticism 
is  the  most  distinctive  feature  of  Augustan  lit- 
erature, and  the  critics,  as  a  rule,  find  their  own 
age  extremely  pleasant.  They  exalt  themselves  as 
social  censors ;  but  the  greatest  evils  they  attack 
are  the  coquetry  of  the  Belle,  the  ill-nature  of  the 
Wit,  and  the  naughtiness  of  scandal :  at  worst, 
their  most  severe  reproaches  are  directed  at  the 
practice  of  spending  the  entire  day  at  the  card- 
table.  If  this  was  an  age  of  despair,  neither  writ- 
ers nor  people  knew  it.  But  if  an  age  of  despair 
is  one  that  has  ceased  to  hope,  to  what  age  could 
the  term  be  applied  more  truly  ?  From  first  to 
last,  in  its  brilliant  and  extended  social  deline- 
ation and  criticism,  there  is  not  one  visiting  air 
from  a  wider  heaven,  not  one  suggestion  of  social 
purpose  or  social  discontent.  The  very  preva- 
lence of  the  satirical  tone  speaks  volumes  in  itself : 
for  satire  waxes  only  as  idealism  wanes.  There 
was  no  satire  in  the  rendering  of  Elizabeth's  court 
by  the  high-souled  gentlemen  who  sung  its  praises  ; 
and  the  lightly  cynical  tone  of  Augustan  literature, 
sometimes  conscious,  sometimes  instinctive,  wit- 
nesses, as  no  elegies  could  witness,  to  a  loss  and  a 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT          99 

lack.  Satire  untouched  by  wrath  or  sorrow,  satire 
acquiescent  and  flippant  and  amused  at  itself, 
satire  unburdened  by  the  sense  of  outrage  and  of 
pain,  is  the  most  tragic  thing  in  the  world. 

But  the  tragedy  in  Swift's  satire  is  of  another 
type.  It  is  conscious  and  deliberate.  The  world 
which  he  shows  us  is  precisely  the  same,  in  man- 
ners and  morals,  that  we  see  in  "  The  Rape  of  the 
Lock,"  "  The  Spectator,"  and,  later,  in  the  novels 
of  Richardson ;  but  the  picture  no  longer  affords 
the  showman  pleasure.  Apart  from  personal  ani- 
mosities, the  irony  of  Addison,  Pope,  Steele,  and 
the  novelists  is  almost  uniformly  cheerful.  There 
is  little  contact  between  their  spirit  and  the  spirit 
of  deep  disinterested  distress  in  the  biting  work  of 
the  great  Dean. 

Dean  Swift's  observations  on  society  are  scat- 
tered through  all  his  writings  ;  but  the  very  quin- 
tessence of  them  is  found  in  an  extraordinary  little 
skit,  called  "  Polite  Conversation."  Like  much  of 
Swift's  work,  this  farrago  of  nonsense  has  great 
literary  merit.  Its  lightness,  sparkle,  and  gayety 
flash  out  a  cold,  snapping  light  that  stings  with 
contempt  and  hatred.  The  satire  is  absolutely 
grave ;  pensive,  urbane,  reasonable  —  ruthless.  A 
Preface,  as  clever  a  bit  of  writing  as  the  century 
can  show,  gives  us  Swift's  intention.  There  is 
little  reason  to  doubt  the  seriousness  of  his  method : 
he  deliberately  and  solemnly  set  himself  to  take 
notes  of  the  talk  and  gossip  he  heard,  with  a  view 
to  holding  the  society  of  his  day  up  to  ridicule, 
and  then  arranged  and  presented  it  in  this  absurd 


100     THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

drama  without  a  plot,  in  which  it  is  hard  to  know, 
which  to  admire  more  candidly,  the  ineptitude  of 
the  details  or  the  flat  vacuity  of  the  whole.  He 
tells  us  just  the  society  he  has  in  view :  "  Al- 
though this  work  be  calculated  for  all  persons  of 
quality  and  fortune  of  both  sexes,  yet  the  reader 
may  perceive  that  my  particular  view  was  to  the 
officers  of  the  army,  the  gentlemen  of  the  inns  of 
court,  and  of  both  universities;  to  all  courtiers, 
male  and  female,  but  principally  to  the  maids  of 
honor  of  whom  I  have  been  personally  acquainted 
with  two  and  twenty  sets,  all  excelling  in  this 
noble  endowment.  ...  It  may  be  objected  that  the 
publication  of  my  book  may,  in  a  long  course  of 
time,  prostitute  this  noble  art  to  mean  and  vulgar 
people ;  but  I  answer  that  it  is  not  so  easy  an 
acquirement  as  a  few  ignorant  pretenders  may 
imagine.  A  footman  may  swear,  but  he  cannot 
swear  like  a  lord.  He  can  swear  as  often,  but  can 
he  swear  with  equal  delicacy,  propriety,  and  judg- 
ment? No,  certainly,  unless  he  be  a  lad  of  supe- 
rior parts,  of  good  memory,  a  diligent  observer,  one 
who  has  a  skillful  ear,  some  knowledge  in  music, 
and  an  exact  taste.  ...  I  am,  therefore,  not  under 
the  least  apprehension  that  this  art  will  ever  be 
in  danger  of  falling  into  common  hands,  which 
requires  so  much  time,  study,  practice,  and  genius, 
before  it  arrives  at  perfection." 

With  this  solemn  introduction,  Swift  leads  us 
into  the  company,  —  Lord  Sparkish,  Lady  Smart, 
Mr.  Neverout,  Miss  Notable,  and  the  rest.  It 
is  a  society  which  probably  represents,  with  fair 


THE  AGE   OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT       101 

accuracy,  the  tone  of  life  among  the  fashionables 
of  the  day.  It  talks,  in  truth,  an  infinite  deal  of 
nothing. 

Col.  Miss,  I  heard  that  you  were  out  of  order ;  pray, 
how  are  you  now  ? 

Miss.  Pretty  well,  Colonel,  I  thank  you. 

Col.  Pretty  and  well,  Miss  !  That 's  two  very  good 
things. 

Miss.  I  mean  that  I  am  hetter  than  I  was. 

Never.  Why,  then,  't  is  well  you  were  sick. 

Miss.  What !  Mr.  Neverout,  you  take  me  up  before 
I  'm  done. 

Lady  Smart.  Come,  let 's  leave  off  children's  play, 
and  go  to  push-pin. 

Miss.  Pray,  Madam,  give  me  some  more  sugar  in  my 
tea. 

Swift  gravely  follows  this  delightful  company 
through  an  entire  typical  day.  The  gentlemen 
meet  in  the  morning  on  the  mall  ;  go  to  breakfast 
at  Lady  Smart's ;  linger  till  noon  over  their  tea, 
of  which  the  whole  society  consume  an  appalling 
amount ;  go  home  for  an  hour ;  return  at  three  to 
dinner.  We  are  treated  to  "the  whole  conversa- 
tion at  dinner :  "  — 

Miss.  Pray,  Colonel,  send  me  some  fritters. 

[Colonel  takes  them  out  with  his  hand. 

Col.  Here,  Miss  ;  they  say  fingers  were  made  before 
forks,  and  hands  before  knives. 

Lady  S.  Methinks  this  pudding  is  too  much  boiled. 

Lady  A.  Oh !  Madam,  they  say  a  pudding  is  poison 
when  it  is  too  much  boiled. 


102     THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

Neverout.  Miss,  shall  I  help  you  to  a  pigeon  ?  Here  's 
a  pigeon  so  finely  roasted  it  cries,  '  Come,  eat  me.' 

Spark.  Why,  a  man  may  eat  this  though  his  wife  lay 
a-dying.  Etc.,  etc. 

Oysters,  veal,  beef,  fish,  pudding,  venison  pasty, 
tongue,  pigeon,  vegetables,  fritters,  soup,  chicken, 
black-pudding,  almond-pudding,  ham,  jellies,  goose, 
rabbits,  sweets,  cheeses,  —  no  wonder  that  one  of 
the  ladies  sighs  mournfully  :  "  Well,  this  eating 
and  drinking  takes  away  a  body's  stomach."  Din- 
ner ended,  they  separate,  the  gentlemen  to  hard 
drinking,  the  ladies  to  scandal  and  tea ;  presently 
the  gentlemen  reenter,  and,  after  a  few  more  cups 
of  tea  have  been  imbibed,  the  company  falls  to 
cards  and  silence :  "  A  party  at  quadrille  until 
three  in  the  morning;  but,"  Swift  adds  sardon- 
ically, "  no  conversation  recorded."  After  this  in- 
tellectual treat,  they  all  "  take  leave,"  and  very 
sleepily  "  go  home. " 

This  nonsense  is  entertaining  enough  ;  but  Swift 
does  not  write  it  because  he  is  amused ;  he  writes 
it  because  he  is  disgusted.  Never  was  frivolity 
recorded  with  such  painstaking  scorn.  The  trivial 
dialogue  is  redolent  of  pure  vacuity  ;  wit,  having 
nothing  but  personality  to  exercise  itself  upon, 
becomes  simple  pertness  ;  in  the  whole  course  of 
the  fashionable  day  sketched  for  us,  not  one  idea 
is  broached,  and  not  one  real  interest  is  suggested. 
As  we  watch  and  listen,  through  the  sardonic  person 
of  the  Dean,  whom  that  society  petted  and  feared, 
we  remember  that  the  years  are  passing,  and  that 
a  revolution  draws  near. 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT       103 

From  society  to  politics  :  and  politics  were  the 
most  absorbing  interest  of  the  time.  Men  of  letters 
were  drawing  near  to  public  life  in  the  age  of 
Queen  Anne  ;  and  Swift's  career,  like  that  of  some 
other  contemporary  writers,  shows  us  the  author  and 
pamphleteer  actually  exercising  influence  on  the 
course  of  national  events,  as  he  has  continued  to 
do  in  our  own  day.  The  Dean  plunged  into  poli- 
tics with  all  the  seriousness  of  his  nature.  During 
the  four  years  of  his  influence,  he  labored  as 
earnestly  for  the  Tories  to  whom  he  transferred 
his  allegiance,  as  if  he  had  passionately  believed 
that  the  welfare  of  the  nation  depended  on  their 
holding  the  balance  of  power.  Perhaps  he  did : 
the  interests  involved  do  not  appear  small,  even 
in  perspective.  But  if  Swift  the  man  of  affairs 
treated  politics  with  a  respect  not  accorded  to 
society,  the  same  cannot  be  said  of  Swift  the 
thinker.  For  withdrawn  into  the  solitude  of  Irish 
life,  and  looking  back  upon  London,  he  wrote 
those  famous  passages  about  the  politics  of  Lilli- 
put  which  scintillate  in  memory.  As  we  read  the 
grave  accounts  of  the  pygmy  statesmen  performing 
on  the  tight-rope,  or  anxiously  turning  somersaults 
to  please  their  monarch,  we  seem  to  listen  to  a 
mocking  translation  of  parts  of  the  "  Journal  to 
Stella,"  while  the  controversy  that  shook  the  state, 
between  the  Big-Endians  who  broke  their  eggs  at 
the  large  end,  and  the  Little-Endians  who  preferred 
the  small,  was  not  invented  by  a  man  who  put  a 
very  serious  construction  on  party  differences  in 
his  own  England.  It  is  permissible  to  wonder 


104   THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

whether  Swift  would  have  penned  just  these  satires 
had  he  been  a  contemporary  either  of  Raleigh  or 
of  Gladstone.  There  are  causes  great  enough  to 
control  the  natural  animus  of  the  scoffer ;  Bacon 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  Disraeli  in  the  nine- 
teenth, handled  public  matters  without  a  sneer. 
Swift's  writings  bear  another  stamp.  They  pro- 
ceed from  a  period  when  politics  ignored  more 
completely  than  ever  before  or  since  the  larger 
causes  which  affect  the  general  social  welfare,  and 
acknowledge  with  what  seems  to-day  almost  cynical 
openness  the  triviality  of  its  interests,  the  meanness 
of  its  methods,  and  the  selfishness  of  its  aims. 

Were  Swift  a  modern,  we  should  be  amazed  at 
the  comparative  absence  from  his  virile  irony  of 
what  we  to-day  call  the  distinctively  social  interest. 
The  social  contrasts  which  are  the  stock-in-trade 
of  the  modern  satirist  he  never  drew.  They  lay 
ready  to  his  hand.  It  would  have  seemed  natural 
to  put  against  the  pictures  in  "  Polite  Conversa- 
tion "  pictures  of  that  wretched  poverty  he  knew 
so  well,  as  Carlyle  in  the  next  century  artfully 
opposed  his  study  of  the  Dandiacal  Household  to 
that  of  the  Poor  Slaves  in  "  Sartor  Resartus." 
Such  a  juxtaposition  Swift  never  makes  in  any 
one  book ;  the  dramatic  connection  between  luxury 
and  misery  he  ignores,  though  he  gives  us  the 
means  of  forming  it ;  and  it  is  characteristic  of  his 
age  that  he  should  do  so. 

Industrial  conditions  and  the  sufferings  of  the 
poor  find,  indeed,  slight  recognition  in  his  pages. 
His  political  tracts,  from  articles  in  the  "  Exam- 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT       105 

iner "  to  the  "  Drapier's  Letters,"  fill  many  vol- 
umes ;  his  social  writings  would  not  occupy  one 
tenth  the  space.  But  these  writings  make  up  in 
power  what  they  lack  in  bulk.  There  is  probably 
no  social  pamphlet  in  existence  which  leaves  the 
reader  so  breathless  with  horror,  so  impelled  to 
flee  from  civilization  like  Christian  from  the  City 
of  Destruction,  as  Swift's  "  Modest  Proposal  for 
Preventing  the  Children  of  the  Poor  in  Ireland 
from  Being  Burdensome,  and  for  Making  them 
Beneficial." 

Like  all  Swift's  distinctly  social  work,  this 
pamphlet  was  inspired  by  Ireland.  The  great 
Dean  was  one  of  the  earliest  Irish  patriots.  He 
awakened  for  perhaps  the  first  time  a  public  or 
national  consciousness  in  that  unhappy  country  ; 
his  "  Drapier's  Letters,"  his  personal  service,  his 
large  and  ceaseless  charity,  his  devoted  ministry 
to  the  poor,  rank  him  as  a  great  philanthropist ; 
he  was  the  idolized  leader  of  the  nation  for  many 
years.  But  all  this  work  only  deepened  the  tragic 
melancholy  with  which  he  watched  the  increasing 
wretchedness  of  the  land.  It  would  probably  be 
impossible  to  exaggerate  the  terrible  suffering 
throughout  Ireland  in  Swift's  day,  —  suffering  as 
great  as  that  seen  by  Spenser  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  is  with  an  economic  perspicacity  not 
always  found  that  Swift  cries,  "  We  are  apt  to 
charge  the  Irish  with  laziness,  because  we  seldom 
find  them  employed  ;  but  then  we  do  not  consider 
they  have  nothing  to  do." 

Brooding   on   this   state  of  things,  the  mighty 


106    THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

heart  of  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  took  fire.  It 
burned  with  an  intense,  steady,  colorless,  and  quiet 
flame.  The  heat  of  it  scorches  the  reader  of  the 
"Modest  Proposal"  still.  The  "Proposal"  is 
presented  with  an  air  of  calmest  reason.  There 
are  too  many  children  in  Ireland ;  there  is  not 
enough  food  :  "  I  think  it  is  agreed  by  all  parties 
that  this  prodigious  number  of  children  in  the 
arms  or  on  the  backs  or  at  the  heels  of  their  mo- 
thers, and  frequently  of  their  fathers,  is  in  the 
present  deplorable  state  of  the  kingdom  a  very 
great  additional  grievance,  and  therefore  whoever 
could  find  out  a  fair,  cheap,  and  easy  method  of 
making  these  children  sound,  useful  members  of 
the  commonwealth,  would  deserve  so  well  of  the 
public  as  to  have  his  statue  set  up  as  a  preserver 
of  the  nation.  .  .  . 

"  There  remain  120,000  children  of  poor  parents 
annually  born.  The  question  therefore  is,  how  this 
number  shall  be  reared  and  provided  for  ?  which  as 
I  have  already  said,  under  the  present  situation  of 
affairs,  is  utterly  impossible  by  all  the  methods 
hitherto  proposed.  For  we  can  neither  employ 
them  in  handicraft  nor  agriculture  ;  we  neither 
build  houses  (I  mean  in  the  country),  nor  culti- 
vate land  ;  they  can  very  seldom  pick  up  a  liveli- 
hood by  stealing  till  they  arrive  at  six  years  old, 
except  where  they  are  of  towardly  parts  ;  although 
I  confess  that  they  learn  the  rudiments  much  ear- 
lier. .  .  . 

"  I  have  been  assured  by  a  very  knowing  Ameri- 
can of  my  acquaintance  in  London,  that  a  young 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT        107 

healthy  child,  well  nursed,  is  at  a  year  old  a  most 
delicious,  nourishing,  and  wholesome  food,  whether 
stewed,  roasted,  baked,  or  boiled  ;  and  I  make  no 
doubt  that  it  will  equally  serve  in  a  fricassee  or  a 
ragout. 

"  I  do  therefore  humbly  offer  it  to  public  con- 
sideration that  of  the  120,000  children  already 
computed,  20,000  may  be  reserved.  .  .  .  That  the 
remaining  100,000  may  at  a  year  old  be  offered  in 
sale  to  the  persons  of  quality  and  fortune  through 
the  kingdom  ;  always  advising  the  mother  to  let 
them  suck  plentifully  in  the  last  month,  so  as  to 
render  them  plump  and  fat  for  a  good  table.  .  .  . 

"  I  grant  this  food  will  be  somewhat  dear,  and 
therefore  very  proper  for  landlords,  who,  as  they 
have  already  devoured  most  of  the  parents,  seem 
to  have  the  best  title  to  the  children.  .  .  . 

"  Some  persons  of  a  desponding  spirit  are  in 
great  concern  about  that  vast  number  of  poor 
people  who  are  aged,  diseased,  or  maimed.  .  .  . 
But  I  am  not  in  the  least  pain  upon  that  matter, 
because  it  is  very  well  known  that  they  are  every 
day  dying  and  rotting  by  cold  and  famine  and 
filth  and  vermin  as  fast  as  can  be  reasonably 
expected.  And  as  to  the  young  laborers,  they 
are  now  in  almost  as  hopeful  a  condition ;  they 
cannot  get  work,  and  consequently  pine  away  for 
want  of  nourishment,  to  a  degree  that  if  at  any 
time  they  are  accidentally  hired  to  common  labor, 
they  have  not  strength  to  perform  it ;  and  thus  the 
country  and  themselves  are  happily  delivered  from 
the  evil  to  come.  , 


108    THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

"  I  can  think  of  no  one  objection  that  will  possi- 
bly be  raised  against  this  proposal,  unless  it  should 
be  urged  that  the  number  of  people  will  be  thereby 
much  lessened  in  the  kingdom.  This  I  freely 
own,  and  it  was  indeed  one  principal  design  in 
offering  it  to  the  world.  .  .  .  After  all,  I  am  not 
so  violently  bent  upon  my  own  opinion,  as  to  reject 
any  offer  proposed  by  wise  men  which  shall  be 
found  equally  innocent,  cheap,  easy,  and  effectual. 
But  ...  I  desire  those  politicians  who  dislike 
my  overture,  and  may  perhaps  be  so  bold  as  to 
attempt  an  answer,  that  they  will  first  ask  the 
parents  of  these  mortals  whether  they  would  not 
at  this  day  think  it  a  great  happiness  to  have 
been  sold  for  food  at  a  year  old,  in  the  manner  I 
prescribe,  and  thereby  have  avoided  such  a  per- 
petual scene  of  misfortunes  as  they  have  since 
gone  through,  by  the  oppression  of  landlords, 
the  impossibility  of  paying  rent  without  money  or 
trade,  the  want  of  common  sustenance,  with  neither 
house  nor  clothes  to  cover  them  from  the  weather, 
and  the  most  inevitable  prospect  of  entailing  the 
like  or  greater  miseries  upon  their  breed  forever." 

Here  is  truly  a  "  check  "  on  population  more 
effective  than  any  proposed  by  Malthus.  It  was 
a  heart-broken  man  who  penned  these  terrible 
words.  Whether  Swift  looked  at  society,  at  poli- 
tics, or  at  the  wider  world  of  Irish  life,  his  mind 
was  visited  by  no  ray  of  cheer  or  hope.  He  saw 
in  society  an  utter  absence  of  all  ideal  aims ;  in 
politics,  a  scramble  of  personal  ambition  and  in- 
trigue ;  in  the  life  of  the  poor,  a  natural,  inevita- 


109 

ble,  and  irremediable  tragedy.  The  testimony  of 
Swift,  let  us  repeat,  as  to  eighteenth  century  con- 
ditions does  not  materially  differ  from  that  of 
other  Augustan  writers.  But  while  they  took  their 
period  with  admiration  and  complacency,  Swift 
took  it  with  despair.  Alone  among  the  authors 
of  the  time,  this  great  soul  might  have  been  an 
idealist  in  happier  days.  Idealism,  suppressed 
and  unnourished,  can  turn  to  a  bitter  smart ;  and 
Swift,  suffering  profoundly  from  conditions  which 
he  accepted  as  inevitable  and  recognized  as  hid- 
eous, produced,  instead  of  any  "  Utopia  "  in  which 
contempt  for  the  present  might  be  relieved  by 
buoyant  hope  for  the  future,  sarcasm  stern,  dark, 
and  fatal,  upon  the  grievous  things  he  saw. 

Swift's  entire  attitude  is  summed  up  and  ren- 
dered with  the  terseness  and  charm  of  a  brilliant 
imagination  in  the  one  popular  book  he  ever  wrote, 
"  Gulliver's  Travels."  This  book  is  the  only  one 
perhaps  in  the  world  to  delight  both  child  and 
cynic.  It  entertains  us  in  youth,  it  depresses  us 
in  age.  Simple  as  the  underlying  device  is,  no- 
thing could  better  reach  Swift's  end,  show  us  more 
clearly  the  relativity  of  all  greatness,  or  fill  us  with 
more  stinging  contempt  for  human  pride.  The 
Lilliputians  bring  home  to  us  our  pettiness,  the 
inhabitants  of  Brobdingnag  our  grossness ;  and 
either  gross  or  petty,  humankind  always  seemed 
to  the  miserable  Dean.  As  we  watch  Gulliver 
wading  into  mid-ocean,  and  tying  the  fleet  of  Ble- 
fuscu  to  ropes  with  which  he  drags  it  ashore,  how 
heartily  we  laugh  at  the  frowning  terrors  of  armies 


110    THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

and  the  great  pretensions  of  national  war !  As 
the  giant,  now  turned  pygmy,  revolts  in  disgust 
from  the  most  delicate  phases  of  the  court-life  of 
Brobdingnag,  our  own  dainty  refinements  lose  hold 
on  our  regard.  Of  the  moral  greatness  which  is 
independent  of  big  or  little,  Swift  gives  us  few 
hints  indeed.  But  he  did  write,  in  the  "  Voyage 
to  Laputa,"  an  allegory  elaborated  with  his  best 
care  and  cleverness,  in  which  he  jeered  as  unspar- 
ingly at  the  intellectual  ambitious  of  men  as  he 
had  jeered  at  their  practical  interests  in  Lilliput. 
It  is  highly  entertaining  to  travel  in  Laputa ;  but 
settled  existence  there  would  be  as  disheartening 
as  in  Lilliput  or  in  Brobdingnag. 

Are  there  any  traces  of  social  idealism  in  "  Gul- 
liver's Travels  "  ?  People  have  tried  to  find  such 
traces  in  Brobdingnag,  and  have  even  compared 
this  part  of  the  "  Travels  "  to  the  "  Utopia."  The 
big  giant-king  is  indeed  amiably  shocked  at  the 
picture  of  English  civilization  which  little  Gulliver 
gives  him,  and  we  are  left  to  infer  from  the  deli- 
cious humor  of  the  passage  that  similar  vices  are 
unknown  in  his  bucolic  state.  But  image  of  a  wise 
social  organization  and  of  positive  intelligent  order 
in  the  Brobdingnagian  society  there  is  none.  Not 
here,  but  among  the  Houyhnhnms,  does  the  much- 
traveled  Gulliver  find  the  home  of  his  heart ;  here 
would  he  fain  spend  the  rest  of  his  days  ;  here  is 
that  peace,  that  freedom,  that  candor,  decency, 
and  reason,  for  which  he  has  ceased  to  hope  among 
men ;  here,  among  the  brutes !  For  the  placid 
horses  who  in  this  queer  dream  have  reversed  our 


THE  AGE   OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT       111 

state,  and  hold  the  degraded  race  of  men  in  sub- 
jection, are  but  beasts  after  all.  Beasts  with  the 
virtues  of  beasts,  which  consist  chiefly  in  freedom 
from  human  vices  ;  cleanly,  dignified,  gentle  ;  with 
no  feeling  for  beauty,  no  instincts  of  deep  affection, 
and  with  rudimentary  powers  of  thought.  The 
bearing  of  Swift's  impassioned  exaltation  of  their 
stupid  life  can  hardly  be  mistaken.  Nor  is  there 
in  the  social  satires  of  the  world  so  fierce  and  fear- 
ful a  study  of  humanity  as  his  picture  of  the  hid- 
eous creatures  who  serve  the  Houyhnhnms:  the 
Yahoos  (yah !  ugh  !),  in  whose  filthy  persons  and 
vile  habits  are  seen  all  the  elements  which  Swift 
believed  to  be  the  component  factors  of  human 
life.  Greed,  quarrelsomeness,  animal  passion, 
cringing  fear,  he  finds  disguised  and  adorned,  on 
his  return  to  England,  as  he  found  them  uncon- 
cealed among  the  servants  of  the  mild  good  brutes 
he  reveres.  His  disgust  for  the  hated  race  grows 
not  weaker  but  stronger  when  he  is  forced  on  their 
society ;  and  we  leave  Gulliver,  the  much-expe- 
rienced Ulysses  of  the  eighteenth  century,  tolerat- 
ing only  on  compulsion  his  fellow-beings,  and  able 
to  find  temporary  mitigation  of  his  lot  only  when 
he  can  retire  to  his  stable  and  associate  with  his 
horses. 

The  bitterest  thing  in  all  Swift's  writing  is  the 
entire  absence  of  any  militant  impulse  to  contend 
against  the  tragedy  it  describes.  There  is  no  hint 
that  human  effort  might  under  any  conceivable 
circumstances  render  human  existence  less  dark. 
For  the  trouble,  to  Swift,  lies  not  in  conditions, 


112    THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS 

but  deep  imbedded  in  man's  nature  itself.  Of 
spiritual  consolation,  even  in  the  crude  form  of 
belief  in  an  hereafter,  he  has  none  to  offer ;  nay, 
the  weird  allegory  of  the  Struldbrugs,  the  most 
terrible  he  ever  invented,  suggests  his  deliberate 
conviction  that  continued  life,  so  innately  sordid 
is  humanity,  could  be  only  a  torture  and  a  curse. 
These  hideous  Immortals,  tainted  with  all  vices, 
endued  with  no  joys,  live  on  forever  among  their 
descendants,  a  perpetual  witness  from  generation 
to  generation  that  life  is  essential  meanness  and 
essential  pain. 

The  man  who  invented  the  Struldbrugs,  who 
wrote  "  Gulliver's  Travels,"  was  a  dean  of  the 
Anglican  Church.  He  was  scrupulously  honest, 
and  entirely  orthodox.  He  attended  to  every  duty 
of  his  office.  He  defended  Christianity  against 
the  attacks  of  deists  and  infidels,  using  his  fa- 
vorite method  of  satire,  —  strangest  weapon  ever 
employed  in  behalf  of  the  religion  of  the  Lord 
of  love.  He  read  the  Liturgy  day  by  day,  and 
approved  its  literary  style.  In  perfect  sincerity, 
he  thought  himself  a  good  Christian.  And  all  the 
time  his  soul  was  un  visited  by  faith  in  God  or  man. 
He  never  knew  that  mingled  impulse  of  worship 
and  compassion,  that  intuition,  so  strangely  sweet, 
of  a  divine  somewhat  playing  through  human 
meanness  and  sensuality,  which  Christianity  can 
bring.  Of  power  for  salvation,  either  individual 
or  social,  inherent  in  the  gospel  of  Christ,  Dean 
Swift  had  no  more  conception  than  if  he  had  been 
a  contemporary  of  Cato. 


THE  AGE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT       113 

Few  stranger  paradoxes  are  to  be  found  in 
literary  history  than  this  of  our  greatest  pessimist 
and  cynic  tranquilly  pursuing  the  priestly  functions 
of  the  religion  of  hope  and  love.  But  the  paradox 
of  Swift  was  the  paradox  of  his  age ;  Augustan 
literature  had  lost  the  social  with  the  spiritual 
outlook.  It  dreamed  no  dream  of  progress,  it 
lifted  the  banner  of  no  ideal.  It  despised  while  it 
depicted  humanity.  It  was  content  to  analyze  its 
own  present,  with  scorn  that  turned  to  jest  or  sob, 
according  to  its  mood.  Perhaps  no  phase  of  civil- 
ization has  ever  been  more  deeply  imbued  with  the 
conviction  of  its  own  finality.  No  trouble  stirred 
it,  nor  was  it,  seemingly,  visited  by  compunction, 
save  when  occasionally,  of  a  sudden,  some  great 
soul  like  Swift  fell  into  fatal  despair. 

In  France,  Voltaire  and  Rousseau  were,  during 
the  next  quarter-century,  to  live  and  cry  aloud :  the 
one  was  to  awaken  in  men's  hearts  a  new  passion 
of  brotherhood,  the  other  was  to  awaken  in  their 
minds  a  new  sense  of  superiority  to  the  established 
fact.  In  England  itself,  Hobbes  and  Locke  had 
already  flung  thought  back  upon  its  own  authority, 
and  bidden  the  human  reason,  irrespective  of  tra- 
dition, create  what  universe  it  would.  Despite  all 
appearance,  the  age  of  authority,  the  age  of  finality, 
the  age  of  conventions,  was  doomed.  The  French 
Revolution  drew  near ;  and  democracy  came  in  its 
train. 


PART  II 

THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 


CHAPTER  I 
OUTLINES 


LESS  than  a  century  passed  between  the  woeful 
helplessness  of  Swift  and  Shelley's  exultant  cry 
of  welcome  to  freedom :  — 

"  Come,  Thou,  but  lead  out  of  the  inmost  cave 
Of  man's  deep  spirit,  as  the  morning  star 
Beckons  the  sun  from  the  Eoan  wave, 
Wisdom."  * 

A  great  race  experience  lay  behind  this  invoca- 
tion. For  a  brief  moment,  men  of  affairs,  phi- 
losophers, and  poets  had  joined  in  one  fervent 
song. 

"  The  world's  great  age  begins  anew, 
The  golden  years  return,"  2  — 

so  they  had  chanted,  with  triumphant  assurance  of 
victory.  French  wit  and  English  thought,  and  the 
personal  passion  of  a  Genevese,  had  all  contributed 
to  the  most  abstract  of  theories,  that  of  the  equal 
rights  of  men.  Suddenly  this  abstract  idea  had 

1  Shelley,  Ode  to  Liberty. 

2  Ibid.,  Chorus  in  Hellas. 


OUTLINES  115 

struck  itself  into  the  actual.  There  it  found  itself 
reinforced  by  the  demand  of  a  positive  need :  by 
suffering,  first  pitiful,  then  vehement,  finally,  as 
events  advanced,  maddened  by  a  new  sense  of 
power.  The  revolutionary  spirit,  which  was  the 
outcome  of  this  union  of  an  ideal  with  a  craving, 
succeeded  for  the  time  only  in  overturning  the 
things  that  were  ;  but  in  its  failure  it  generated  a 
hope  that  cannot  die.  From  that  day  to  our  own, 
all  life  has  been  lived  and  all  literature  produced 
in  the  presence  of  that  hope.  "  Une  immense 
esperance  a  traversee  la  terre,"  —  whatever  the 
unrest  or  discouragement  of  modern  literature, 
this  its  reader  can  never  forget. 

The  French  Revolution  introduced  a  disturbing 
force  into  the  sphere  of  politics,  and  made  dynamic 
a  new  ideal  in  the  sphere  of  thought.  Meanwhile 
another  revolution  was  in  progress  ;  it  proceeded 
more  quietly,  but  brought  with  it  yet  more  impor- 
tant readjustments  of  the  whole  social  system. 
This  was  the  industrial  revolution  which  at  the 
end  of  the  last  century  followed  the  introduction 
of  machinery.  It  was  not  initiated  by  a  dramatic 
display,  and  its  effects  were  slow  in  gaining  recog- 
nition :  for  they  worked  below  the  surface,  reach- 
ing chiefly  the  inarticulate  classes.  But  it  meant 
upheaval  from  the  depths,  and  the  time  was  to 
come  when  the  surface  should  feel  the  stir.  To 
ignore  misery  in  another  island,  misery  produced 
by  natural,  unhuman  causes  like  famine,  was  one 
thing  ;  to  ignore  misery  in  the  very  midst  of  civil- 
ized England,  misery  accented  if  not  produced  by 


116       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

fresh  conditions  of  national  development  deliber- 
ately adopted,  was  another  thing,  and  not  so  easy. 

Nineteenth  century  literature,  then,  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  period  profoundly  different  from  any 
that  had  gone  before.  The  times  of  arrest  in  which 
Swift  wrote  are  over ;  the  stately  and  simple  move- 
ment of  national  expansion  in  the  Renascence  lies 
far  in  the  past;  the  majestic  immobility  of  the 
feudal  system  is  hard  for  even  the  imagination  to 
reproduce.  In  the  modern  world,  all  things  waver, 
safeguards  and  protections  seem  to  elude  the  hand 
that  would  grasp  them,  and  forces  both  occult  and 
obvious  work  in  bewildering  complexity,  moving  at 
once  toward  destruction  and  renewal. 

The  greatest  safeguard  of  true  order  as  of  true 
liberty  —  the  Christian  Church  —  is  singularly 
little  in  evidence  during  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  As  we  remember  the  role  of  the 
Church  in  the  eighteenth  century,  we  cannot  won- 
der that  when  the  time  of  social  trial  came,  she 
should  have  been  found  pitifully  wanting.  Chris- 
tianity has  factors  both  revolutionary  and  conserva- 
tive: and  there  are  crises  where  each  is  needed. 
But  probably  every  one  would  now  agree  that  the 
Church  made  a  grievous  mistake  when,  in  the 
mighty  upheaval  of  thought  and  life  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century,  she  allied  herself  with  the  con- 
servative forces  of  respectability.  She  could  not 
do  otherwise :  her  social  fervors  and  her  spiritual 
vitality  always  ebb  and  flow  together,  and  that  was 
the  period  of  her  spiritual  ebb-tide.  But  the  result 
was  inevitable  and  righteous,  —  she  was  given  sor- 


OUTLINES  117 

rowf ully  little  share  in  the  great  onward  movement 
of  life.  The  spiritual  ideals  of  any  age  are  to  be 
read  best  through  its  imaginative  art :  this  art,  in 
the  England  of  the  early  nineteenth  century,  is  not 
Christian  ;  indeed,  it  is  barely  cognizant  of  Chris- 
tianity. Neither  poetry  nor  prose  draws  its  social 
passion  from  her  inspiration,  nor  solves  its  social 
problems  through  her  aid.  It  would  have  been  a 
bitter  thing  to  Langland,  and  even  to  More,  to  see 
the  Christian  Church  least  effective  at  the  time  of 
most  heart-searching  change. 

Thus  unguided,  unrelated,  helpless,  with  founda- 
tions slipping  away  in  all  directions,  the  thought  of 
the  century  began.  No  one  man  could  express  such 
a  period,  We  can  select  one  writer  to  be  a  fair 
representative  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  the  Renas- 
cence, of  the  eighteenth  century :  to  gain  even  hints 
of  the  social  moods,  desires,  and  sorrows  of  mod- 
ern times,  we  must  know  not  one  author  only,  but 
many.  Each  author  expresses  not  a  stable  state 
of  things,  but  one  which,  whether  he  knows  it  or 
not,  is  in  constant  flux  under  his  very  eyes.  To 
understand  the  social  bearing  of  modern  literature 
is  then  not  easy,  but  the  attempt  is  rewarding  as 
well  as  difficult. 

The  heirs  of  the  Revolution  were  the  English 
poets  ;  and  to  study  the  social  ideals  of  our  litera- 
ture and  leave  them  out  is  almost  to  omit  Hamlet 
from  his  play.  Yet  their  poetry  is  too  great  to 
handle  as  a  detail,  and  the  scope  of  this  book  will 
not  allow  a  more  extended  treatment.  Their  spleu- 


118       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

did  ideal  of  love  and  freedom,  of  "joy  in  widest 
commonalty  spread,"  is  part  of  our  national  inher- 
itance ;  a  little  care  is  needed  to  prevent  us  from 
mistaking  or  minimizing  its  scope.  From  Words- 
worth to  Byron,  the  poets  were  shaken  and  shaped 
by  the  political  revolution,  with  its  swift,  dramatic, 
tragic  sequence  from  hope  to  despair ;  of  the  pro- 
founder  industrial  changes  at  work,  they  were  dimly 
if  at  all  conscious.  Yet  the  aim  of  all  their  passion 
was  social.  They  employed  political  terminology, 
for  revolutionary  thought  placed  what  we  now  see 
to  have  been  an  over-stress  on  forms  of  government, 
but  their  political  opinions  were  simply  means  to 
an  end  ;  and  that  end  was  the  opportunity  for  full 
life,  spiritual  and  natural,  thrown  open  to  every  son 
of  man. 

In  the  imagination  of  the  revolutionary  period 
one  more  fact  must  be  noted :  the  new  seriousness 
with  which  it  took  itself  and  its  function.  These 
dreamers  were  probably  the  first  English  poets  to 
believe  that  their  visions  might  actually  affect 
public  thought  and  social  achievement.  To  them 

"  Not  favored  spots  alone  but  the  whole  earth, 
The  beauty  wore  of  promise,"  J 

and  they  firmly  believed  that  henceforth  not  only 
they,  but  all  men  of  vision,  — 

"  Were  called  upon  to  exercise  their  skill, 
Not  in  Utopia,  —  subterranean  fields, 
Or  some  secreted  island,  Heaven  knows  where, 
But  in  the  very  world,  which  is  the  world 
Of  all  of  us,  —  the  place  where  in  the  end, 
We  find  our  happiness,  or  not  at  all." 

1  Wordsworth,  The  Prelude,  book  xi. 


OUTLINES  119 

The  feeling  that  it  was  a  direct  force  to  act  on 
affairs  imparted  a  new  responsibility  to  art  and  a 
new  earnestness  to  idealism.  Through  ridicule, 
contention,  denial,  this  feeling  has  persevered. 

The  poetry  of  the  revolution  did  its  work, 
bequeathed  a  great  ideal,  and  passed  away.  By 
1825,  the  voices  of  the  poets  were  silenced.  In  the 
decade  between  1830  and  1840,  fresh  phases  of 
social  passion  sought  expression  through  a  differ- 
ent instrument.  These  phases  we  shall  try  to 
follow. 

ii 

Poetry  and  prose  have  changed  places  in  the 
Victorian  Age.  During  the  revolutionary  period, 
great  passions  swayed  the  poets,  small  fancies  the 
writers  of  prose;  and  Wordsworth  and  Shelley 
were  larger  men  than  Lamb,  Hazlitt,  or  De  Quin- 
cey.  But  as  time  went  on,  poetry  turned  away 
from  the  wide  love  for  humanity  and  for  freedom. 
It  became  preoccupied  with  the  elaboration  of  form, 
and  with  meditation  on  the  privacies  of  the  soul ; 
and  prose,  pressing  nearer  to  the  larger  life,  and 
expressing  more  fully  the  social  interests  and  pas- 
sions of  men,  took  the  lead  which  it  still  keeps,  in 
variety,  vigor,  and  power. 

The  change  was  inevitable.  For  poetry  subsists 
on  visions :  and  visions  the  modern  social  situation 
has  not  offered.  Shelley's  ideal  was  a  fleeting 
glory.  Hardly  more  than  one  generation  could 
cherish  the  simple  faith  that  if  once  the  powers 
that  be  are  destroyed,  the  race  will  enter  without 


120       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

delay  its  happy  heritage  of  freedom.  Even  while 
the  poets  were  chanting  paeans  to  Liberty,  the 
gloomy  shadow  of  industrial  slavery,  unobtrusive, 
unnoted,  was  gathering  over  the  land.  All  through 
our  own  days,  beneath  the  superficial  spread  of 
political  Republicanism,  the  silent,  mighty,  agoniz- 
ing expansion  of  Democracy  has  been  opening 
abysses  of  incertitude  and  dark  inquiry  into  which 
men  fear  to  gaze.  Under  these  circumstances,  we 
cannot  wonder  that  poets  have  betaken  themselves 
to  the  inner  life,  and  have  abandoned  the  wider 
enthusiasms  of  their  forerunners,  with  confidence 
in  the  wisdom  of  their  social  solutions  and  ambi- 
tions. It  is  indeed  somewhat  exasperating  as  well 
as  humorous  to  hear  Swinburne,  or  some  other 
pseudo-Shelley,  occasionally  echoing  the  old  inspi- 
ration, and  chanting  a  dithyramb  against  kings,  or 
an  ode  to  political  freedom.  If,  as  some  surmise, 
a  new  and  troubling  ideal  is  astir  in  society,  no 
fear  but  in  the  fullness  of  time  the  poet  will  come 
to  voice  it.  Meanwhile,  prose,  the  more  flexible 
instrument,  the  art-form  of  democracy,  which  can 
solace  itself  with  problems  when  faith  is  denied, 
thrills  with  the  contemporary  interest  which  poetry 
disregards. 

From  the  days  of  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  English 
prose  has  assumed  a  social  attitude.  Its  new  dig- 
nity, its  volume,  scope,  and  importance,  are  due 
largely,  though  of  course  not  wholly,  to  the  candor 
and  audacity  with  which  it  has  rendered  the  larger 
collective  facts,  the  fearful  questions  and  tentative 
theories,  of  an  epoch  more  and  more  absorbed  in 


OUTLINES  121 

social  problems.  The  novelists  and  essayists  who 
have  swayed  the  public  most  have  had  varying 
claims  to  attention ;  but  all  with  one  accord  have 
been  social  critics.  The  novelists  give  us  their  criti- 
cism chiefly  through  picture,  the  essayists  through 
analysis.  Consider,  compare  ;  look  at  these  pic- 
tures, study  these  analyses.  Follow,  in  a  word,  the 
social  aspect  of  the  work  of  men  of  letters  from 
1830  to  1880.  We  shall  trace  the  growth  of  a  new 
factor  in  consciousness  :  the  awakening  and  the 
gradual  self-assertion  of  the  social  conscience. 

Our  subject  confines  us  to  the  development  of 
the  new  thought  in  England.  But  we  must  not 
forget  that  all  over  Europe  the  same  mighty  forces 
have  been  heaving,  and  have  often  stirred  hearts 
to  more  dramatic  outbursts  of  passion  and  desire 
than  are  found  among  the  sober  Anglo-Saxons. 
The  magnificent  social  fiction  of  Russia,  with  its 
baffling  union  of  the  primeval  and  the  outworn,  of 
harsh  realism  and  mystic  fervor,  begins  with  Gogol, 
Dostoyevsky  and  Turgeiiieff,  to  find  in  Tolstoi 
a  master  so  compelling,  that  all  Europe  stops  to 
hear  the  stories  told  to  peasants,  and  to  watch  the 
shoemaker  at  his  bench.  In  France,  the  social- 
istic Utopias  of  1848  find  semi-lyrical  expression 
in  the  lovely  stories  of  Georges  Sand's  social 
period,  —  "  Le  Meunier  d' Angibault,"  and  "  Le 
Compagnon  du  Tour  de  France,"  as  well  as  in 
Hugo's  immeasurable  and  memorable  dream,  "  Les 
Miserables ; "  while  to-day  a  book  like  Zola's  "  Ger- 
minal "  shows  that  in  modern  Paris,  in  the  midst 
of  much  that  is  trivial  and  morbid,  a  large  social 


122       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

issue  can  still  be  largely  conceived.  The  names 
of  Ibsen,  Sudermann,  and  Hauptmaun  suggest  the 
keenness  with  which  Northern  nations  are  ana- 
lyzing certain  phases  of  the  social  problem.  All 
this  imaginative  literature,  with  its  Slavic,  Latin, 
or  Germanic  qualities,  exhales  a  more  impassioned 
unrest,  a  wilder  inspiration,  than  the  social  writings 
of  England.  Through  it  sounds  a  more  melan- 
choly wail  of  sorrow  over  the  wide  pain  of  the  un- 
privileged. This  is  natural,  since  in  a  country  like 
Russia  the  situation  is  far  more  obviously  though 
not  more  profoundly  dramatic  than  in  a  land  where 
constitutional  "  liberty  "  and  general  suffrage  im- 
part a  delusive  aspect  of  peace.  The  sweeping 
audacity  of  some  of  these  Continental  books  is 
unsurpassed.  Yet  through  all  differences  of  racial 
situation  and  temperament,  one  subject  and  one 
impulse  control  the  imagination  of  the  modern 
world.  In  the  significant  literature  of  every  Euro- 
pean nation,  we  may  trace  the  growth  of  what  we 
have  called  a  new  factor  in  the  life  of  the  race. 

If,  turning  from  these  wide  and  adventurous 
wanderings  to  the  little  province  explored  by  the 
English,  we  ask  which  authors  of  the  Victorian 
Age  among  those  no  longer  living  have  played  the 
most  vital  part  in  the  evolution  of  social  ideals,  the 
answer  comes  clear.  From  1830  to  1880  no  men 
of  pure  letters  so  held  the  public  ear  as  Carlyle, 
Ruskin,  Arnold.  Carlyle's  "  French  Revolution," 
that  splendid  elegy  of  a  dying  world  and  birth- 
song  of  a  world  to  be,  won  for  the  author  a  tardy 
fame  in  1837  ;  and  from  that  day  to  1860,  he  was 


OUTLINES  123 

without  question  the  greatest  force  among  Eng- 
lish thinkers.  After  that  time,  his  vital  power 
waned;  but  it  was  in  1860  that  Ruskin*s  "Unto 
this  Last,"  showing  the  popular  art-critic  in  a 
wholly  new  light,  first  amazed,  then  angered  his 
wide  audience  ;  and  from  this  time  till  well  into 
the  eighth  decade  of  the  century,  the  social  writ- 
ings of  Ruskin  continued  their  passionate  plead- 
ing. Before  1880,  however,  a  new  writer  was 
voicing  the  advanced  ideals  of  his  generation,  and 
the  brilliant  social  criticism  of  Matthew  Arnold 
expressed  a  fresh  phase  of  thought,  tenacious  in 
influence.  His  books  might  be  a  little  dishearten- 
ing, did  they  mark  the  end  of  our  social  literature. 
They  were  not  the  end :  they  marked  simply  the 
conclusion  of  an  epoch. 

Three  men  of  any  modern  nation  more  diverse 
in  antecedents,  temperament,  interests,  than  these 
three  essayists,  it  would  perhaps  be  impossible  to 
find.  Carlyle,  the  prophet,  was  of  peasant  origin, 
indifferent  to  beauty  and  to  delicacy.  Ruskin,  the 
dreamer,  was  the  son  of  a  rich  merchant,  softly 
born  and  bred.  Arnold,  observer,  scoffer,  silenced 
poet,  sprang  from  the  professional  class,  the  intel- 
lectual elite  of  England.  Carlyle's  kinship  was 
with  Germany,  Ruskin's  with  Italy,  Arnold's  with 
France.  Carlyle's  eyes  were  in  his  conscience, 
Ruskin's  in  his  heart,  Arnold's  in  the  normal  place, 
his  head.  Each  turned  away  from  the  dominant 
interest  of  his  youth,  —  history,  art-criticism,  or 
poetry,  —  to  focus  the  most  earnest  thought  of  his 
prime  sternly  and  earnestly  on  the  social  anoma- 


124       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

lies  and  paradoxes  of  modern  life.  The  common 
features  in  their  social  diagnosis  ought  assuredly 
to  be  worth  noting. 

In  the  ninth  decade  of  our  century,  after  these 
men  were  silenced,  there  appeared  in  England  a 
new  social  force.  It  introduced  new  lines  of  cleav- 
age. It  put  a  new  face  on  the  social  problem.  To 
the  recognition  of  this  force,  contemporary  litera- 
ture has  been  busy  in  adjusting  itself.  The  first 
fifty  years  of  Victoria's  reign  form,  then,  an  epoch 
which  we  may  well  consider  by  itself.  It  is  an 
epoch  of  unmeasured  significance,  both  actual  and 
germinal. 

Before  we  take  up  this  epoch  in  detail,  we  must 
signal  the  great  work  of  the  Victorian  novel.  For 
with  vivid,  swift  development,  it  has  pictured  what 
the  essayists  discussed.  It  gives  us  a  series  of 
social  documents  of  the  highest  importance ;  their 
value  to  be  more  and  more  felt  as  the  conditions 
it  depicts  become  historic.  At  the  very  beginning 
of  the  period,  fiction  turned  away  from  donjon  and 
tourney,  and  sought  for  background  the  street, 
the  club,  the  England  of  to-day.  With  occasional 
lapses  into  romanticism,  it  has  remained  insistently 
modern.  The  trend  toward  social  interest  has  been 
only  too  strong,  at  times,  for  artistic  freedom, 
From  "  Oliver  Twist "  to  "  Sir  George  Tressady," 
social  pictures,  social  problems,  fill  the  scene. 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  uncovered  and  revealed 
the  social  layers  of  early  Victorian  England. 
About  1850,  their  simple  reproductions  gave  place 
to  the  novel  of  protest  and  arraignment ;  this  in 


OUTLINES  125 

its  turn  is  yielding  nowadays  to  the  novel  of  con- 
structive suggestion,  whether  in  the  form  of  avowed 
literary  Utopias,  or  of  schemes  for  social  salvation 
in  would-be  realistic  garb.  We  have  had  indeed 
no  social  fiction  so  great  as  that  of  Russia :  but 
we  have  had  Dickens  and  Thackeray;  we  have 
had  George  Eliot,  George  Meredith,  and  Thomas 
Hardy ;  we  have  had  for  lesser  folk,  Reade,  Trol- 
lope,  Kingsley,  Disraeli,  Macdonald.  Our  social 
novels  illustrate  and  supplement  our  social  essays. 
With  even  greater  clearness,  they  show  the  appear- 
ance of  new  dramatic  forces  upon  the  stage. 

Beneath  all  this  literature,  with  its  strong  social 
preoccupation,  lies  what  ?  A  strange  and  contra- 
dictory civilization  which  we  cannot  yet  interpret ; 
tingling  with  self-consciousness,  yet  unaware  of 
much  in  its  own  tendencies ;  decadent  and  infan- 
tile, with  the  mighty  force  of  youth  and  the  tremu- 
lous caution  of  age ;  —  a  civilization  with  a  fuller 
ideal  of  freedom  than  was  ever  before  known  for 
its  hope,  and  a  new  form  of  bondage  in  which 
millions  are  held  for  its  achievement.  Our  litera- 
ture has  confronted  a  social  situation  dramatic, 
difficult,  and  complex.  Many  episodes  of  this  sit- 
uation it  expresses  directly.  Now,  history  shows 
Chartism,  and  in  Carlyle's  essay,  in  "  Alton 
Locke,"  in  the  Correspondence  of  Kingsley  and 
Maurice,  we  catch  the  appalled  surprise  with  which 
intelligent  England  first  heard  the  cry  of  the  dis- 
possessed. Now,  the  beautiful  and  visionary  ar- 
dors of  the  French  Revolution  of  1848  find  faint 
reflection  even  in  the  dull  Anglo-Saxon  mirror. 


126       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

Now,  early  Trades-Unionism  slips  furtively  upon 
the  stage,  in  Dickens'  "  Hard  Times,"  Reade's 
"  Put  Yourself  in  His  Place,"  and  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
"  Mary  Barton."  Eead  "  Yeast,"  and  the  condi- 
tion of  the  agricultural  poor  is  forced  upon  us ; 
"  Daniel  Deronda,"  and  the  Hebrew  problem,  with 
all  its  romance  and  mystery,  captures  the  mind. 
In  our  own  days,  if  we  let  our  thought  glide  on  to 
a  somewhat  later  period,  fiction  and  fact  have 
drawn  almost  bewilderingly  near. 

But  our  modern  books  do  far  more  than  illus- 
trate phases  of  history :  through  them,  the  higher 
consciousness  of  the  age  dimly  feels  its  way.  For 
the  author  —  leader,  critic,  opposer  of  his  genera- 
tion though  he  may  be  —  is  yet  always  mysteri- 
ously compelled  to  utter  the  age  he  may  despise. 
Reading  these  books  chronologically,  we  follow  the 
unconscious  changes  in  public  sentiment :  its  vary- 
ing emphases,  theories,  advances,  recoils.  Are  such 
changes  mere  bewildered  fluctuations,  false  starts  of 
men  lost  in  the  dark  ?  In  the  presence  of  the  mod- 
ern situation,  social,  industrial,  political,  thinker 
after  thinker  relapses  into  helplessness.  Some  offer 
panaceas.  Some  take  refuge  in  criticising  these 
panaceas.  Some  betake  themselves  to  comforting 
and  sedative  confidence  in  the  laws  of  nature. 
What  if,  watching  the  workings  of  earnest  minds, 
we  find  a  steady  trend  of  thought  in  one  direction  ? 
Retrospect  is  true  prophecy,  and  we  may  come  to 
recognize  through  all  vagary  and  contradictory 
clamor  the  slow  advance  of  a  great  idea.  A 
mighty  struggle  for  social  salvation,  not  yet  fully 


OUTLINES  127 

in  evidence,  but  inexorably  preparing,  lies  behind 
all  incidents  of  modern  life  and  art.  The  great 
social  literature  before  1880  reveals  the  gather- 
ing of  the  forces.  To  discover  the  issue  was  the 
work  of  that  period.  To  face  it  is  the  work  of 
our  own. 


CHAPTER  H 

SOCIAL,   PICTURES  :    DICKENS   AND   THACKERAY 

IF  its  social  interest  does  not  preserve  the  early 
Victorian  novel,  what  will  ?  Not  the  qualities  for 
which  its  contemporaries  hailed  it.  Before  Dick- 
ens' vaunted  pathos,  the  modern  reader  is  likely, 
with  Andrew  Lang  and  Pet  Marjorie,  to  remain 
"  more  than  usual  calm."  His  crude  plots,  his 
coarse  and  heavy  melodrama,  have  lost  vitality. 
His  humor  is  real,  and  mere  contagious  high  spirits 
do  much  to  preserve  him :  yet  humor,  like  salt, 
can  keep  a  good  thing  alive,  but  cannot  long  lend 
interest  to  a  poor  one.  In  Thackeray's  books,  we 
find  a  far  more  permanent  charm  :  yet  his  endless 
prolixity,  and  the  affected  ease  of  his  confidences, 
do  not  delight  us  as  they  did  our  fathers.  In 
characterization,  the  latter-day  novel  has  advanced 
with  startling  rapidity.  Dickens  has  no  char- 
acters at  all,  properly  speaking ;  and  though 
Thackeray's  touch  is  much  finer,  all  his  famous 
keenness  of  analysis,  compared  with  the  best 
French  or  Russian  work,  dissects  only  the  tissue 
nearest  the  skin. 

These  authors  are  at  the  beginning  of  realistic 
art.  They  cannot  individualize.  What  keeps 
them  alive,  and  will  never  lose  its  power,  is  the 


DICKENS  AND   THACKERAY  129 

vividness  of  their  social  delineation.  The  first 
realists  to  treat  the  modern  world,  they  see  that 
world  as  a  whole.  Men  appear  to  them  in  social 
groups.  They  catch  environments  and  types  ;  per- 
sons elude  them.  How  thronged  are  their  books 
with  figures!  The  novelist  to-day  concentrates  his 
light  on  one  or  two,  or  on  a  small  group  of  contrast- 
ing characters.  There  are  seventy-five  people  in 
"  Our  Mutual  Friend ;  "  sixty  in  "  Vanity  Fair." 
Turn  over  rapidly  the  pages  of  Thackeray  and 
Dickens  :  you  have  walked  through  streets,  you 
have  been  to  evening  parties,  you  have  glanced  at 
home-interiors  simply  to  pass  on,  you  have  become 
slightly  more  intimate  with  club  and  inn  and  polit- 
ical meeting,  but  deep  into  the  soul  of  the  individ- 
ual man  you  have  never  paused  to  look.  You 
have  passed  modern  society  in  review. 

The  flash-light  of  imagination  in  Thackeray  and 
Dickens  falls  most  brightly  upon  London.  Here 
the  modern  city  makes  its  first  appearance  in  art. 
London !  Not  the  delightful  "  town "  of  the 
eighteenth  century  novel,  with  its  seductive  gaye- 
ties,  whence,  nevertheless,  the  sedan-chair  of  the 
lovely  Miss  Byron  reaches  in  a  few  moments  the 
dangerous  seclusion  of  the  fields  ;  but  London  as 
we  know  it,  a  fevered  world,  including  cities  within 
cities,  possessing  through  all  its  heterogeneous 
parts  a  unity  almost  terrible  :  the  great  ganglion 
quivering  with  the  vibrations  of  the  whole  ner- 
vous system  of  England.  What  a  place  !  Where 
shall  we  find  its  likeness  in  the  scenery  of  the 
earlier  imagination,  classic  or  Christian  ?  Miss 


130       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

Austen,  in  the  last  generation,  in  the  very  heyday 
of  the  romantic  imagination,  had  written  her  mod- 
est and  undying  sketches  of  the  life  she  knew, 
the  tranquil  life  that  lingered  unchanged  in  the 
by-ways  of  England.  Her  conditions  and  temper- 
ament conspired  to  impose  limitations  which  make 
her  art  perhaps  more  enduring  than  that  of  her 
great  successors,  since  from  very  scarcity  of  mate- 
rial she  was  forced  to  individualize  after  much  our 
present  manner.  But  on  account  of  these  very 
limitations,  her  work  has  slight  value  as  social 
evidence  to  the  wider  phases  of  contemporary  life. 
It  is  this  value  which  the  books  of  Dickens  and 
Thackeray  possess  supremely.  The  unconscious 
excitement,  the  largeness  of  manner,  with  which 
they  depict  whole  classes  and  the  social  centre  of 
England,  make  their  novels  documents  of  a  high 
order  of  importance  to  the  critic  who  would  under- 
stand English  life  in  1840. 

The  two  authors,  taken  as  a  whole,  give  us  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  entire  social  structure.  One 
begins  where  the  other  ends,  and  only  in  rare 
cases  do  their  provinces  intersect. 

Dickens  starts  in  the  depths.  His  earliest  tri- 
umphs were  won  by  studies  in  the  lowest  social 
strata.  The  "  submerged  tenth,"  to  use  the  mod- 
ern phrase,  —  the  criminal  class,  and  those  victims 
of  society  who  in  their  turn  prey  upon  society,  — 
gain  new  vividness  in  his  pages.  Through  "  Oliver 
Twist,"  cheap  melodrama  though  it  now  seem  to 
us,  the  English  public  learned  for  the  first  time 
to  recognize  the  touch  of  common  humanity  in 


DICKENS  AND   THACKERAY  131 

murderer  and  prostitute.  In  the  portraits  of 
Smike  in  "  Nicholas  Nickleby,"  Jo  in  "  Bleak 
House,"  Tom  Pinch,  Little  Nell,  and  many  others, 
we  trace  the  awakening  of  the  modern  sense  of 
compassion  for  the  poor  and  destitute.  Starting 
from  these  lowest  social  types,  the  genius  of 
Dickens  moves  with  ardor  and  ease  among  the 
wide  ranks  of  the  common  people,  and  dwells  in 
keen,  contagious,  merry  affection  on  all  their  sal- 
ient traits.  This  invasion  of  literature  by  the  illit- 
erate  is  almost  without  precedent  in  English  books. 

Conventions  a-plenty  still  cling,  indeed,  to  Dick- 
ens. Not^once  does  he  dare  draw  his  nominal  hero  / 
or  heroine  from  the  lower  classes ;  and  the  insipid  * 
young  gentlemen  and  ladies  who  fill  these  roles 
witness  to  the  inadequacy  of  his  genius  when  it 
works  away  from  its  true  home,  —  the  heart  of  the 
people.  It  is  the  great  world  of  trade  that  he 
shows  us,  especially  of  retail  trade  :  the  small  shop- 
keepers and  peddlers,  the  dolls'  dressmakers,  the 
dancing-masters,  also  the  lower  grades  of  profes- 
sional folk,  nurses,  lawyers'  clerks,  surgeons'  ap- 
prentices, sextons,  and  the  like.  Let  him  try  to 
give  the  masters  of  these  delectable  immortals,  and 
immediately  we  have  costumes,  not  men.  Dick 
Swiveller  lives  forever ;  who  can  remember  the 
name  of  his  employer  ? 

Dickens'  environment  matches  his  people.  How 
intensely  he  has  made  us  know  it :  the  London  of 
the  lower  middle  class !  The  grimy,  dreary  streets  ; 
the  little  shops,  smelling  of  tallow  ;  the  warehouses 
by  the  river ;  the  prison,  the  Court  of  Chancery, 


132       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

the  cheap  inns  and  eating-houses,  the  cosy  interiors 
with  the  sense  of  the  counter  in  the  front ;  all  these 
scenes  and  many  others,  from  the  daily  life  of  the 
great  unprivileged  throng  of  men,  crowd  upon  the 
memory.  No  other  novelist  has  so  contagious  a 
visualizing  power.  We  see  the  Cratchits'  home 
with  Tiny  Tim  in  it ;  Newman  Noggs  in  the  cold 
counting-room ;  little  David  pasting  labels  on  the 
blacking-bottles,  in  company  with  Mealy  Potatoes ; 
Sam  Weller  cleaning  the  boots  in  the  inn  court- 
yard ;  Mr.  Stiggins  enjoying  the  society  of  the 
portly  sisters  in  grace.  What  author  has  ever 
shown  with  such  width,  variety,  and  rich  sympathy 
all  phases  of  popular  life  ?  The  people,  moreover, 
all  act  in  character.  They  rarely  allow  us  to  for- 
get their  occupations.  Their  actions  and  their 
talk  smack  of  the  shop.  And,  indeed,  of  what, 
except  the  shop,  should  Dickens'  people  talk? 
They  possess  no  resources,  they  have  no  manners. 
As  soon  as  he  tries  to  enter  the  world  where  pro- 
priety and  pretty  behavior  rule,  Dickens  becomes 
absurd. 

Not  so  with  Thackeray.  Manners  are  his  one 
solace  in  a  dreary  world.  The  charming  behavior 
of  his  people  goes  far  toward  making  us  forget 
and  forgive  their  morals.  "Society,"  technically 
speaking,  is  his  province,  and  his  social  interests 
begin  at  just  the  point  where  those  of  Dickens  end. 
When,  in  his  deepest  condescension,  he  stoops  to 
a  merchant,  as  in  old  Sedley  or  Osborne,  he  is  in 
the  region  where  Dickens'  social  imagination  takes 
its  most  daring  flight.  But  Thackeray  is  more  at 


DICKENS  AND   THACKERAY  133 

home  in  that  polite  world  where  trade,  if  practiced, 
is  never  mentioned.  He  allows  us  to  associate 
with  very  great  personages ;  the  presence  even  of 
royalty  is  once  or  twice  hinted  at  his  parties. 
Titles  are  sprinkled  through  his  books  with  care- 
less ease.  Professional  people,  even  the  most  suc- 
cessful, are  introduced  with  an  ironical  little  air  of 
apology.  The  drawing-room  and  the  club  are  his 
arena,  as  the  street  and  the  inn  are  the  arena  of 
Dickens.  When  Thackeray  leaves  this  region  of 
good  breeding  and  pretty  ways,  of  frivolity,  wit, 
and  charm,  it  is  to  show  the  parasitical  fringe  that 
depends  on  the  world  polite.  He  is  never  more 
felicitous  than  in  this  province,  hobnobbing  with 
the  servants  who  imitate,  and  the  adventurers  who 
pursue,  the  great.  The  rollicking  fun  with  which 
he  slyly  describes  life  below  stairs,  and  his  keen 
knowledge  of  the  declasse  throng  that  seeks  to 
elbow  its  way  into  the  sacred  inclosure  of  fashion, 
are  nearly  the  finest  factors  in  his  art. 

Though  Dickens  and  Thackeray  live  in  the  same 
city,  and  work  in  a  way  on  the  same  material, 
their  worlds  barely  touch.  One  region  alone  they 
have  in  common,  —  literary  Bohemia :  David  Cop- 
perfield  may  well  have  met  Pen  and  Warrington 
at  the  Black  Kitchen. 

Certain  great  social  omissions,  are  notable  in 
their  work.  They  do  not  know  the  agricultural 
poor,  whom  Kingsley  was  to  recognize  in  "  Yeast," 
and  George  Eliot  was  to  immortalize.  They  fight 
rather  shy  of  clergymen.  Nor  is  even  Dickens 
fully  aware  of  that  silent  throng  on  whom  rested 


134       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

the  whole  social  fabric :  the  productive  class.  His 
people,  workers  though  they  be,  live  by  selling, 
not  by  making.  His  knowledge,  though  not  his 
sympathy,  fails  when  he  approaches  industrial  con- 
ditions, and  the  slight,  pathetic  figures  of  Rachel 
and  Stephen  Blackpool,  in  "  Hard  Times,"  are 
almost  his  only  examples  of  manual  laborers.  The 
time  of  the  proletariat  in  art  has  not  yet  come. 

Yet  with  all  exceptions  made,  what  range  of 
social  observation  in  these  two  novelists !  "What 
marvelous  pictures  of  our  multiform  life  !  Through 
their  achievement,  modern  English  civilization  be- 
comes, with  much  that  it  connotes,  an  imaginative 
reality,  arrested,  undying. 

The  worlds  they  depict  are  not  uncorrelated, 
however  separate.  For  the  world  of  Dickens  exists 
that  the  world  of  Thackeray  may  live ;  makes  its 
gowns,  cares  for  its  horses,  officers  its  prisons,  pro- 
vides its  food,  its  inns,  its  dancing-lessons,  its  coffins. 
All  this  incessant  ferment  and  bustle  that  pervade 
Dickens,  this  preoccupation  with  material  things, 
is  to  the  end  that  the  personages  of  Thackeray 
may  lead  their  leisurely  existence  of  intrigue  and 
ambition,  of  winning  manners  and  mean  actions, 
untouched  by  sordid  care.  Trade  and  society  ig- 
nore each  other  in  these  books  ;  but  they  are  tied 
together  by  innumerable  finest  threads,  so  that 
however  they  may  face  in  opposite  directions,  they 
can  never  move  apart. 

What  are  the  distinctive  features  of  this  social 
order  ? 

The  first  obvious  fact  about  it  is  that  it  is  filled, 


DICKENS  AND   THACKERAY  135 

riddled,  created  by  money:  commercial  to  the 
core.  Dickens'  world  is  absorbed  in  the  making, 
Thackeray's  in  the  sjpending,  of  money.  In  Dick- 
ens, commercial  prosperity,  or  the  reverse,  is  the 
usual  environing  action.  In  Thackeray,  money,  if 
less  discussed,  is  the  anxious  sub-consciousness  of 
society  at  large.  To  gain  it  by  speculation  or  du- 
bious means  is  regarded  as  natural  though  unde- 
sirable. Indiscreet  questions  are  rarely  asked  of 
its  possessor.  It  is  the  passport  of  fashion,  and 
is  rapidly  becoming,  though  not  yet  confessed,  the 
measure  of  station.  The  old  terms,  —  birth,  breed- 
ing, culture,  —  are  still  asserted,  still  in  use  on  the 
surface.  Below  the  surface,  the  money  standard 
is  silently  pushing  its  way,  pressing  these  more 
ideal  considerations  out  of  sight. 

Perhaps  this  state  of  things  seems  to  us  too 
natural  for  comment.  Suppose,  then,  we  turn  back 
for  a  moment  to  the  fictitious  world  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  Recall  the  sketches  in  the  "  Spec- 
tator," the  novels  of  Fielding  and  Richardson  ; 
recall  even  Thackeray's  own  "  Henry  Esmond," 
with  its  marvelous  reproduction  of  Queen  Anne 
society.  Conditions  are  utterly  changed.  Society 
is  coarse,  if  you  will ;  illiterate,  superficial,  and 
frivolous  ;  cheerfully  acquiescent  in  a  religion  of 
common  sense,  and  an  absurd  canon  of  etiquette 
for  the  "  young  person."  But  mercenary  it  is  not. 
Even  Swift's  cruel  sarcasm  leaves  this  special  taint 
imhinted.  For  the  image  of  a  civilization  that  has 
become  mercantile,  we  must  turn  to  the  fiction  of 
the  early  Victorian  age. 


136        THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

The  period  which  Thackeray  and  Dickens  de- 
scribe was  that  of  England's  greatest  commercial 
prosperity.  A  new  world  had  been  born.  Indus- 
trial democracy  was  in  its  vigorous  prime.  Rail- 
ways, telegraphs,  manufactures,  material  resources 
in  general,  were  developing  with  breathless  rapid- 
ity. The  wealth  of  the  country,  as  the  famous 
phrase  had  it,  was  advancing  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
Feudalism  had  gone  at  last,  and  a  mercantile  plu- 
tocracy had  taken  its  place. 

No  one  can  claim  that  modern  civilization,  as 
seen  through  modern  novels,  is  beautiful.  Imagine 
an  Athenian  of  the  golden  age  set  a-walking  in  the 
London  dear  to  Dickens.  Look  through  his  eyes 
at  the  flare  of  the  street-lights  in  the  dim  fog  that 
overhangs  the  sordid  place.  Smell  the  rank  odor 
with  which  the  atmosphere  is  charged.  Watch 
the  crowds  that  hasten  by  :  stunted  or  stout,  but 
always  unlovely,  always  with  some  ugly  accented 
trait,  emphasized  often  into  a  deformity  amusing 
only  to  a  diseased  imagination.  Follow  these  peo- 
ple to  their  homes  or  haunts.  Hear  their  talk, 
redolent  of  the  streets,  marked  with  the  hideous 
cockney  blur  which  Dickens  has  immortalized. 
Note  their  coarse  pleasures,  their  heavy  eating  and 
drinking,  their  dreary  lives,  enlightened,  to  be  sure, 
by  many  kindly  human  traits,  but  strangely  devoid, 
not  only  of  charm,  but  of  higher  interests  of  art 
and  thought  and  action.  These  are  the  seething 
lower  ranks  of  the  society  formed  by  trade.  Their 
life  is  rendered  with  unerring  fidelity  by  Dickens' 
instinct  for  the  picturesque.  Whatever  redeeming 


DICKENS  AND   THACKERAY  137 

features  it  may  possess,  it  is  not  beautiful ;  it  is 
irremediably  vulgar. 

From  vulgarity,  the  gentle  world  of  Thackeray 
turns  away  its  eyes.  And  rightly.  For  if  a  truly 
gracious  life,  endowed  with  dignity,  purity,  and 
charm,  can  be  produced  among  the  few  by  the 
subjection  and  sacrifice  of  the  many,  why  count  the 
human  cost  ?  The  perfect  flower  of  a  noble  aris- 
tocracy has  always  been  held  worth  a  large  and 
grimy  root  of  toiling  multitudes.  In  Thackeray, 
fiction  describes  for  the  first  time  the  modern  aris- 
tocracy produced  by  a  commercial  regime.  What 
shall  be  said  of  it  ? 

Every  society  is  known  by  its  heroisms.  When 
we  think  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  image  of  the 
Knight  rests  distinct  at  the  heart  of  our  concep- 
tion. The  splendid  eulogy  over  the  dead  Lancelot 
sums  the  ideal :  "  And  thou  were  the  kindest  man 
that  ever  strake  with  sword ;  and  thou  were  the 
goodliest  person  that  ever  came  within  press  of 
knights  ;  and  thou  was  the  meekest  man  and  the 
gentlest  that  ever  ate  in  hall  among  ladies ;  and 
thou  were  the  sternest  knight  to  thy  mortal  foe  that 
ever  put  spear  in  the  rest."  We  have  seen  the 
ideal  shift  in  the  sixteenth  century  from  knight  to 
gentleman ;  but  the  main  lines  were  unchanged, 
and  the  age  produced  a  brood  of  heroes  of  glorious 
type.  Even  the  eighteenth  century  could  boast 
its  Sir  Charles  Grandison.  He  had  his  good 
points,  that  magnificent  gentleman,  however  funny 
he  may  appear  to  us ;  the  chief  trouble  with  him 
was  that  he  had  no  prototype  in  the  world  of  fact, 


138       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

such  as  was  possessed,  unfortunately  for  decency, 
by  his  rival  hero,  Tom  Jones.  The  deterioration 
of  the  hero  was  beginning,  but  it  was  not  accom- 
plished. Who  are  the  heroes  of  the  Victorian 
Age? 

Is  there  anything  more  mournful,  is  there  any- 
thing more  undeniable,  than  the  dearth  of  heroes 
in  Victorian  fiction  ?  The  phrase  which  Thack- 
eray put  on  the  title-page  of  his  "Vanity  Fair" 
might  serve  as  a  general  motto  for  his  books  and 
the  books  of  his  great  colleague :  "  a  novel  without 
a  hero."  He  shows  us  a  world  in  which  time  may 
be  pleasantly  passed,  —  the  melancholy,  kindly 
satirist;  a  world  in  which  brave  men  are  found, 
moreover,  and  sweet  women,  and  the  prattle  of 
little  children.  But  it  is  a  world  without  inspira- 
tion. The  corruption  of  morals  is  as  great  in 
Thackeray's  gentry  as  the  corruption  of  taste  in 
Dickens'  shop-keepers.  For  if  we  accept  the  tes- 
timony of  our  novelists,  the  advantage  of  morals 
is  surely  with  the  lower  classes,  as  the  advantage 
of  charm  is  with  the  upper.  Would  one  rather 
associate  with  Dickens'  plain  people,  sound  at 
heart  through  all  their  vulgarity,  with  his  Ken- 
wigses,  his  Marchioness,  his  Micawbers,  or  with 
Thackeray's  gay  and  entertaining  society  ?  Would 
one  rather  be  invited  to  dinner  by  Mrs.  Rawdon 
Crawley  or  by  the  Peggottys  ?  Perhaps  it  depends 
upon  one's  temperament!  But  if  in  Thackeray 
society  is  hypocritical,  in  Dickens  it  is  too  often 
brutal ;  and  the  world  of  the  one  is  thoroughly 
materialized  by  want,  as  the  world  of  the  other  by 


DICKENS  AND   THACKERAY  139 

luxury.  Nor  can  either  show  us,  in  modern  times, 
a  single  uplifting  ideal.  The  complex  life  they 
see  presents  to  their  eyes  no  causes  for  which  men 
may  live  and  die.  No  spiritual  wind  impels  their 
society  forward  into  the  future;  no  inspiration 
breathes  in  it  above  the  round  of  material  toil, 
personal  ambition,  or  family  affection.  What 
character,  in  any  of  their  books,  thrills  to  a  large 
and  noble  aim  ?  Upon  whom  has  dawned  the 
idea,  so  operative  to-day,  of  social  service?  Their 
novels  hold  slight  trace  of  social  discontent  or  un- 
rest, to  say  nothing  of  wide  social  hopes.  Not  one 
effective  person  in  Thackeray  or  Dickens,  unless  it 
be  poor  Toby  Veck,  rises  to  challenge  the  existing 
order.  Stephen  Blackpool,  with  his  sigh,  "  it 's 
aw'  a  muddle,"  is  almost  the  solitary  instance  of 
general  protest  to  be  found.  How  unintelligent, 
as  a  rule,  are  Thackeray's  good  people,  how  bad 
his  clever  ones !  He  can  indeed  give  us  fair 
pictures  of  high,  though  usually  passive  devotion 
to  honor,  of  touching  selflessness,  but  where  ?  —  in 
the  soldiers,  who,  apart  from  the  mercantile  world, 
are  trained  to  keep  ever  on  the  watch  for  the 
blessed  occasion  of  death ;  in  the  women,  who, 
withdrawn  from  a  frivolous  society,  preserve  their 
goodness  in  seclusion,  too  often  at  the  expense  of 
their  wits.  Would  he  show  us  a  hero  more  posi- 
tive and  effective  ?  He  turns  —  curious  paradox 
—  to  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  lofty  tone 
and  simple  nobility  of  "Henry  Esmond"  prove 
that  Thackeray  need  not  be  cynical  when  he  deals 
with  a  society  he  respects.  His  pessimism  springs, 


140       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

largely  at  least,  from  his  subject,  not  from  his 
soul.  Dickens,  on  a  similar  quest  for  the  heroic, 
flees  the  nineteenth  century  in  like  fashion,  and 
places  Sydney  Carton's  noble  sacrifice  in  a  Revo- 
lutionary setting.  In  the  modern  world  as  they 
show  it,  to  resist  mercenary  marriage  and  foster 
gentle  sentiments  is  the  finest  ideal  presented  for 
the  women ;  to  keep  aloof  from  dishonor  and  culti- 
vate the  private  and  domestic  virtues,  all  that  is 
expected  from  the  men.  This  society  has  forgot- 
ten its  heroisms ;  but  it  has  retained  its  martyr- 
doms. A  sorrowful  endurance  is  the  lot  of  the 
best  people  of  Thackeray;  it  is  for  victims,  not 
for  fighters,  that  our  sympathy  is  claimed  by 
Dickens. 

In  receiving  the  evidence  of  fiction,  much  allow- 
ance must  of  course  be  made  for  the  personal  equa- 
tion. It  is  easy  for  a  novelist  to  lower  the  lights 
and  deepen  the  shadows  in  his  picture  ;  it  is  easy 
for  him  to  let  his  emphasis  fall  too  sharply  here  or 
there.  Dickens  doubtless  looked  out  on  the  world 
through  a  consciousness  that  magnified  deformity, 
Thackeray  through  a  consciousness  that  darkened 
vice.  Yet  the  authors  themselves  are  the  product 
of  their  time,  and  their  very  prepossessions  are 
one  form  of  its  expression.  Their  personal  atti- 
tude marks  an  advance,  but  not  a  very  great 
advance,  on  the  attitude  of  the  society  they  de- 
scribe. Thackeray,  at  least,  is  under  no  illusions  of 
self-complacency.  He  does  not  admire  "the  way 
of  the  world,"  but  he  accepts  it;  and  his  gentle 


DICKENS  AND   THACKERAY  141 

acquiescent  fatalism  is  never  visited  by  the  stir- 
ring thought  of  possible  reconstruction  :  — 

"  '  You  are  your  uncle's  pupil,'  said  Warring- 
ton  rather  sadly  ;  '  and  speak  like  a  worldling.' 

"  '  And  why  not  ? '  asked  Pendennis.  '  Why 
not  acknowledge  the  world  I  stand  upon,  and  sub- 
rait  to  the  conditions  of  the  society  we  live  in  and 
live  by  ?  ...  I  say,  I  take  the  world  as  it  is,  and, 
being  of  it,  will  not  be  ashamed  of  it.  If  the  time 
is  out  of  joint,  have  I  any  calling  or  strength  to 
set  it  right  ? ' 

" '  Indeed  I  don't  think  you  have  mudi  of  either,' 
growled  Pen's  interlocutor."  l 

Dickens  was  far  more  alive  to  the  suffering 
in  the  world  than  was  Thackeray  ;  and  he  was 
strongly  influenced  by  Carlyle.  He  became  there- 
fore by  deliberate  intention  social  reformer,  — 
and  in  so  far  the  less  artist.  Against  one  social 
abuse  after  another  —  work-houses,  schools,  pris- 
ons, courts  of  law  —  he  vigorously  ran  a-tilt ;  and 
his  books,  of  which  no  one  could  mistake  the  vivid 
import,  largely  won  the  results  he  desired  for 
them.  Yet,  ardent  champion  of  the  poor  that  he 
was,  one  cannot  fail  to  be  aware  that  the  social 
theories  of  Dickens  were  genially  shallow.  Rem- 
edy specific  abuses,  reform  your  prisons,  your 
schools  ;  and  what  remains  to  be  done  or  wished  ? 
Nothing ;  unless  it  be  that  society  become  a  little 
more  sentimental.  Apply  unlimited  Christmas  din- 
ners ;  become,  with  one  accord,  cheerful,  benevo- 
lent, and  plump :  and  the  social  problem  will  be 
1  Pendennis,  vol.  ii.  ch.  xxiii.  "  The  Way  of  the  World." 


142       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

solved.  Indomitable  faith  in  the  kindness  and 
tender-heartedness  of  humanity  at  large,  villains 
excepted,  was  as  much  the  centre  of  Dickens'  con- 
viction as  an  equally  undisturbed  assurance  of  its 
meanness  was  the  centre  of  Thackeray's.  This 
gentle  and  joyous  optimism,  however  superficial  it 
may  be,  goes  far  to  relieve  Dickens'  grim  pictures 
of  the  abnormal,  and  to  heighten  the  attractiveness 
of  his  work ;  but  it  cannot  be  said  to  increase  the 
value  of  his  witness  as  a  social  critic  or  prophet. 

Our  first  Victorian  novelists,  then,  reflect  for  us 
a  society  of'a  new  type  :  just  forming  yet  unaware 
of  its  own  crudeness,  marked  by  a  new  cleavage  of 
classes  working  at  cross  purposes  with  the  old 
rigid  lines  of  rank ;  a  society  in  which  the  dignity 
of  the  old  order  is  vanishing,  but  the  ideal  of 
the  new  has  not  yet  appeared  ;  a  society  devoid 
of  large  hopes,  riddled  with  materialism  ;  one  in 
which  the  private  virtues  could  indeed  —  as  when 
can  they  not  ?  —  flourish,  but  in  which  the  wider 
sense  of  social  responsibility  is  unknown.  The 
individualistic  period  of  democracy,  the  early 
phases  of  a  commercial  and  mercantile  civiliza- 
tion, the  new  plutocracy,  are  mirrored  in  their 
pages. 

Their  work  shows  the  social  surface  alone ;  of 
the  deeper  forces  stirring  below,  neither  was  cog- 
nizant. It  was  into  this  society  that  Carlyle  threw 
his  "  Sartor  Eesartus."  That  the  book  found  its 
own  is  proof  of  a  profound  restlessness,  of  an  as- 
piration, of  a  discontent,  never  probed  by  Thack- 
eray or  Dickens. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   AWAKENING:     "SARTOR  RESARTUS" 

THE  representative  author  of  serious  prose  in  the 
England  of  1830  was  undoubtedly  Macaulay.  He 
was  a  young  man  of  thirty,  and  he  had  already 
been  famous  five  years.  The  cheerf ulest  of  writers, 
his  well-informed  mind,  whether  snubbing  poor 
Southey's  laments  over  the  encroachments  of  the 
factory  system,  or  extolling  the  advantages  of  the 
Baconian  philosophy,  simply  reveled  in  hearty 
approval  of  things  as  they  were.  In  the  familiar 
third  chapter  of  his  History,  "  The  State  of  Eng- 
land in  1685,"  he  expressed  his  full  contentment. 
The  chapter  is  a  comparison  of  the  national  life  in 
the  seventeenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  :  a  splen- 
didly eloquent  and  rhetorical  outpouring  of  self- 
con  gratulation  and  righteous  pride. 

Macaulay  chooses  four  towns  as  examples  of  the 
marvelous  advance  in  English  well-being:  Man- 
chester, Leeds,  Sheffield,  and  Birmingham.  He 
describes  their  condition  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, —  small,  quiet,  unobtrusive  places.  He  bids 
us  look  at  them  now,  —  seething  with  population, 
proud  in  unrivaled  productivity.  He  alludes  with 
a  sigh  of  pity  to  the  time  when  buttons  were  not 
manufactured  at  Birmingham,  and  when  Sheffield 


144       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

did  not  yet  "  send  forth  its  admirable  knives,  razors, 
and  lancets  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the  world." 
Of  Manchester  he  tells  us :  "  That  wonderful 
emporium,  which  in  population  and  wealth  far 
surpasses  capitals  so  much  renowned  as  Berlin, 
Madrid,  and  Lisbon,  was  then  a  mean  and  ill-built 
market-town,  containing  under  six  thousand  peo- 
ple." In  short,  these  towns  "have,  within  the 
memory  of  persons  still  living,  grown  to  a  greatness 
which  this  generation  contemplates  with  wonder  and 
pride,  not  unaccompanied  by  awe  and  anxiety." 

This  is  the  attitude  of  the  sensible  and  self-satis- 
fied Liberalism  which  thought  itself  in  the  van  of 
progress  in  1840.  Of  late  years,  the  factory  towns 
of  England  are  used  to  point  a  different  moral. 
They  may  be  contemplated  with  "  wonder,"  "  anxi- 
ety," and  even  "  awe,"  but  hardly  with  "  pride." 

The  first  note  of  protest  destined  to  carry  con- 
viction to  a  complacent  England  sounded  in  1833 
from  the  Scottish  moors.  It  was  not  the  voice  of 
a  young  man.  The  days  of  boy  lyrists  of  freedom 
were  over.  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  were  to 
chant  no  more  "  Lyrical  Ballads "  in  the  heyday 
of  their  youth,  nor  was  a  new  Shelley  to  arise, 
arraigning  society  with  the  wondering  grief  of  a 
child.  The  interpreters  of  the  mature  century  were 
to  be  mature  men. 

Carlyle  was  not  only  the  contemporary  of  Ma- 
caulay,  but  his  elder  by  five  years.  Yet  a  new  order 
smouldered  in  his  soul.  In  1833,  while  Macaulay 
was  in  the  prime  of  fame,  Carlyle  had  not  yet 
found  his  audience.  Through  "  Sartor  Resartus  " 


SARTOR  RESARTUS  145 

he  found  it,  or  rather  he  created  it.  It  is  well 
known  how  the  book,  written  in  the  author's  thirty- 
eighth  year,  was  offered  in  vain  from  publisher  to 
publisher.  Printed  at  last  by  installments  in  a 
daring  magazine,  it  found  only  two  avowed  admir- 
ers :  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  in  Ireland,  and  a 
young  ex-Unitarian  minister  named  Emerson  in 
the  New  England  across  the  seas.  It  was  first 
published  as  a  whole,  to  our  lasting  satisfaction, 
in  America,  where  the  Transcendental  movement, 
inspired  by  this  same  Emerson,  gave  it  welcome. 
The  first  English  edition  did  not  appear  till  1838 ; 
and  it  is  clear  that  even  when  before  the  public, 
the  little  volume  took  time  to  make  its  way. 

We  cannot  wonder.  To  the  generation  of  1840, 
"  Sartor  "  must  have  been  completely  baffling.,,  It 
scouted  modern  civilization  in  toto.  It  violated 
every  literary  tradition.  It  jeered  at  the  most 
cherished  conventions,  religious  and  social.  In- 
stead of  well-marshaled  paragraphs,  it  presented  a 
chaos  of  seemingly  incoherent  quotations ;  instead 
of  lucid  dogmatism,  bewildered  inquiry ;  instead 
of  tangible  theme,  definitely  treated,  a  phantas- 
magoria of  ironical  observation  and  mystical  dream. 
What  reception  could  be  expected?  The  book  was 
treated  with  convenient  neglect  by  the  subjects  of 
that  wide  kingdom  of  the  obvious,  where  Macaulay 
reigned  supreme. 

For  us  looking  back,  however,  "Sartor"  is  not 
hard  to  place.  It  is  the  last,  perhaps  the  noblest 
utterance  of  the  early  romantic  movement  in  Eng- 
land ;  and  it  is  also  the  first  notable  and  sincere 


146        THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

expression  of  the  attitude  which  seeks  to  see  modern 
life  with  no  glamour  of  delusion.  Thus  it  belongs 
both  to  the  future  and  to  the  past,  to  romanticism 
and  to  realism :  a  germinal  book  indeed. 

All  over  Europe,  the  romantic  temper  of  adven- 
ture and  challenge  was  at  work  under  the  shallow 
crust  of  acquiescence  :  and  the  smoke  and  strain  of 
the  romanticism  of  the  Continent  are  in  Carlyle's 
work.  "  Le  romantisme,  c'est  le  liberalisine  dans 
1'art,"  Victor  Hugo  had  lately  written  in  the  pre- 
face to  "  Hernani ; "  and  current  "  liberalisme  "  had 
a  wider  scope  than  "1'art."  Young  French  men 
of  letters,  ignorant  of  the  force  with  which  they 
played,  might  amuse  themselves  with  the  Divine 
Right  of  Kings  and  other  feudal  properties ;  full 
of  the  "haine  du  bourgeois,"  they  might  try  to 
escape  middle  class  Philistinism  by  taking  refuge 
in  the  salon  of  the  aristocracy  instead  of  in  the 
heart  of  the  people.  But  their  royalist  ardors  were 
brief,  and  Hugo  the  champion  of  Charles  X.  was 
already  becoming  Hugo  the  champion  of  the  de- 
mocracy. The  real  animus  that  inspires  romantic 
literature  is  revolution,  not  reaction.  It  is  pro- 
foundly iconoclastic.  The  philosophical  idealism 
which  Germany  had  contributed  to  the  romantic 
movement  was  in  the  long  run  incompatible  with 
respect  for  the  established  fact.  Into  this  idealism 
Carlyle  had  thirstily  plunged,  and  "  Sartor "  is 
saturated  with  it.  The  tone  of  the  book  has  little 
in  common  with  that  esthetic  mysticism  which 
glorifies  the  poems  of  Coleridge  and  Keats,  and  is 
potent  in  all  the  great  English  poets  of  the  romantic 


SARTOR  RES  ART  US  147 

revival ;  it  is  a  spiritual  mysticism  that  searches  the 
very  springs  of  life. 

"  Can  the  Earth,  which  is  but  dead,  and  a  vision, 
resist  Spirits  which  have  reality,  and  are  alive  ?  " 

The  man  who  could  thus  feel  the  illusion  of 
phenomenal  existence  and  the  power  of  the  soul 
could  not  be  expected  to  hold  in  safe  and  narrow 
tenacity  to  the  existing  social  order. 

But  the  work  of  romanticism  could  not  be  ac- 
complished till  it  turned  not  only  philosopher,  but 
realist.  It  had  to  leave  coquetry  with  turrets  and 
armor,  and  to  seek  satisfaction  for  its  audacious 
instinct  in  wooing  the  wonder  of  the  actual  world. 
It  had  to  bring  the  idealism  won  from  speculation 
to  bear  on  the  social  facts  about  it.  The  moment 
when  it  made  the  change  is  profoundly  significant. 
This  moment  "  Sartor  Resartus  "  preserves.  The 
romantic  temper,  deepened,  Germanized,  and 
brought  with  grim  resolution  to  face,  not  the 
dreams  of  the  past,  but  the  facts  of  the  present, — 
such  is  the  mood  of  this  strange  book. 

It  made  its  way  in  time,  as  new  life  will.  It 
found  those  for  whom  it  was  written :  the  children 
of  the  future.  To  the  young  men  of  England, 
it  remained  for  more  than  one  generation  a  sort  of 
gospel.  What  they  first  discovered  and  chiefly 
valued  was  doubtless  its  noble  religious  message. 
Teufelsdrockh,  the  hero,  was  the  earliest  in  England 
of  those  spiritual  sons  of  romance  —  a  John  Ingle- 
sant,  a  Marius  the  Epicurean  —  whose  inner  for- 
tunes the  reading  public  has  shared  with  so  keen  a 
sympathy.  In  his  experience  the  age  found  what 


148       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

many  of  its  earnest  children  desired :  the  rejection 
of  creeds  with  the  renewal  of  faith. 

However,  the  real  import  of  "  Sartor  Resartus  " 
is  only  in  part  spiritual  and  personal.  The  vibra- 
tions of  the  French  Revolution  were  still  in  the 
air,  and  the  social  animus  of  the  book  is  throughout 
as  strong  as  the  religious.  When  we  first  see  the 
little  Professor  Teufelsdrbckh,  he  is  toasting  "  The 
Cause  of  the  Poor,  in  God's  name,  and  the  Devil's," 
amid  the  plaudits  of  Weissnichtwo.  Carlyle  takes 
all  pains  to  emphasize  the  twofold  sweep  of  his 
radicalism.  At  the  very  outset,  he  couples  with 
the  "  clear,  logically  founded  transcendentalism  " 
of  his  hero,  a  "  meek,  silent,  deep-seated  sans- 
culottism,"  and  the  "  sans-culottism "  remains  at 
least  as  prominent  as  the  "  transcendentalism  "  in 
the  Professor's  mystifying  personality.  The  mock 
horror  with  which  Carlyle  cites  his  utterances  is 
never  so  charged  with  hidden  zest  and  even  mis- 
chief, as  when  Teufelsdrockh  breaks  into  some 
sweeping  attack  on  social  creeds.  At  the  queer 
end  of  the  story,  the  bewildering  hero  vanishes 
from  the  scene ;  apparently,  though  the  hint  is 
given  with  bated  breath,  he  has  betaken  himself  to 
the  society  of  the  Saint  Simonians,  those  early 
French  socialists  whose  vagaries,  as  we  know  from 
other  sources,  had  always  a  certain  attraction  for 
Carlyle.  The  word  Socialism  is  never  mentioned 
in  the  book :  half  a  century  was  to  pass  before  the 
sound  of  that  word  was  to  strike  habitual  terror  to 
English  ears ;  but  into  socialistic  fellowship,  never- 
theless, disappears  from  view  the  first  hero  of  the 
modern  social  movement  in  English  literature. 


SARTOR  RESARTUS  149 

The  spiritual  and  social  elements  of  the  book  are 
indeed  so  united  that  separation  is  impossible.  A 
"  speculative  radical,  and  that  of  the  very  darkest 
tinge,"  like  the  Professor,  convinced  tjiat  "custom 
doth  make  dotards  of  us  all "  "  and  weaves  air- 
raiment  for  all  the  Spirits  of  the  Universe,"  no 
sooner  discovers  the  central  truth  that  "  man  is  a 
spirit "  than  he  proceeds  to  a  supreme  disregard  of 
man's  "clothes,"  "acknowledging  for  the  most  part 
in  the  solemnities  and  paraphernalia  of  civilized 
life,  which  we  make  so  much  of,  nothing  but  so 
many  cloth-rags,  turkey-poles,  and  '  bladders  with 
dried  peas.'  "  The  whimsical  "  clothes-philosophy  " 
was  probably  the  most  felicitous  form  in  which 
Carlyle's  universal  challenge  could  have  been  ut- 
tered. Who  can  forget  the  startling  chapter  in 
which  Teufelsdrockh  forces  us  to  look  at  the  World 
out  of  Clothes :  society  in  its  "  birthday-suit," 
mother-naked,  engaged  in  its  accustomed  pursuits  ? 
The  whole  book  produces  much  the  rueful  effect 
of  such  a  scene,  and  conventions  of  society  and 
religion  still  disappear  with  equal  celerity  as  we 
turn  its  pages. 

To  a  modern  reader,  indeed,  the  social  teachings 
of  "  Sartor  Resartus  "  strike  home  with  more  fresh- 
ness than  the  religious.  It  was  in  every  sense  a 
work  of  transition,  but  the  spiritual  transition  which 
it  signaled  has  been  accomplished  long  ago,  and  its 
message  comes  to  us  with  force  truly,  but.  not  with 
novelty.  The  social  challenge  of  the  book,  on  the 
other  hand,  rings  audacious  as  ever,  for  the  social 
transition  of  which  it  gives  perhaps  the  first  hint 


150       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

in  imaginative  prose  has  lasted  seventy  years,  and 
is  still  in  progress. 

The  starting-point  of  the  entire  book  is  that 
sense  of  the  social  organism  which  we  sometimes 
vaunt  for  a  recent  discovery.  To  Carlyle,  society 
is  no  result  of  a  "  social  contract,"  no  fortuitous 
collection  of  individuals ;  it  is  a  living  unity  of  fel- 
lowship. As  a  direct  consequence  of  this  abstract 
conception  his  thought  thrills  with  the  intense  con- 
sciousness, so  alien  to  our  forefathers,  of  the  silent 
multitudes  by  whose  toil  we  live.  "  Sartor  Resar- 
tus  "  is  one  of  the  first  books  in  which  the  modern 
working-class  is  recognized  and  its  condition  noted. 
The  thought  of  Langland,  unheeded  through  the 
centuries,  finds  here  at  last  an  echo,  and  the  rever- 
ence for  labor,  revived  by  Wordsworth,  is  reiterated 
with  new  earnestness :  "  Hardly  entreated  Brother ! 
For  us  was  thy  back  so  bent,  for  us  were  thy  straight 
limbs  and  fingers  so  deformed :  thou  wert  our  con- 
script on  whom  the  lot  fell,  and  fighting  our  battles 
wert  so  marred."  "  Two  men  I  honor  and  no  third : 
•First,  the  toil-worn  Craftsman  that  with  earth-made 
Implement  laboriously  conquers  the  earth  and 
makes  her  man's.  ...  A  second  man  I  honor  and 
still  more  highly :  him  who  is  seen  toiling  for  the 
spiritually  indispensable :  not  daily  bread  but  the 
bread  of  life."  From  this  deep  feeling  for  our 
organic  unity  with  the  workers,  it  naturally  follows 
that  Carlyle  makes  the  connection  that  Swift  failed 
to  make,  because  he  lacked  the  feeling.  Luxury  and 
poverty,  in  "  Sartor  Kesartus,"  appear  no  longer  as 
puzzling,  independent  phenomena.  They  are  sternly 


SARTOR  RESARTUS  151 

related.  Carlyle's  contrasting  pictures  of  Poor 
Slaves  and  Dandies,  striking  studies  of  social 
extremes  as  were  ever  drawn,  are  placed  side  by 
side  with  highest  art.  They  might  be  printed  in 
the  Labor  Press  to-day,  unchanged  except  for  a 
few  details  in  the  costume  of  the  dandy. 

Three  generations  have  passed,  and  we  see  the 
instinct  which  animates  Carlyle's  thought  so  far, 
almost  universal.  Yet  there  are  ways  in  which  he 
is  distinctly  in  advance  of  us  still.  For  his  accent, 
unlike  our  own,  falls  constantly  on  the  non-material 
aspects  of  social  need.  He  is  alive  to  the  physical 
distress  of  the  poor ;  but  the  son  of  a  Scotch  mason, 
inured  to  poverty  from  childhood,  was  no  senti- 
mentalist, nor  do  hardship  and  privation  seem  in 
themselves  great  evils  to  him.  What  tortures  him 
with  agpny  fierce  and  broken  in  expression  is  the 
thought  of  the  multitudes  spiritually  disinherited ; 
by  the  very  conditions  of  modern  industry,  con- 
signed to  mental  apathy  worse  than  physical  death. 

"  It  is  not  because  of  his  toils  that  I  lament  for 
the  poor :  we  must  all  toil  or  steal  (howsoever  we 
name  our  stealing),  which  is  worse ;  no  faithful 
workman  finds  his  task  a  pastime.  The  poor  is 
hungry  and  athirst ;  but  for  him  also  there  is  food 
and  drink :  he  is  heavy-laden  and  weary ;  but  for 
him  also  the  Heavens  send  Sleep,  and  of  the  deep- 
est; in  his  smoky  cribs,  a  clear  dewy  heaven  of 
Rest  envelops  him,  and  fitful  glitterings  of  cloud- 
skirted  Dreams.  But  what  I  do  mourn  over  is  that 
the  lamp  of  his  soul  should  go  out ;  that  no  ray  of 


152       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

heavenly,  or  even  earthly  knowledge  should  visit 
him ;  but  only,  in  the  haggard  darkness,  like  two 
spectres,  Fear  and  Indignation  bear  him  company. 
Alas,  while  the  Body  stands  so  broad  and  brawny, 
must  the  Soul  lie  blinded,  dwarfed,  stupefied,  almost 
annihilated !  Alas,  was  this  too  a  breath  of  God ; 
bestowed  in  Heaven,  but  on  earth  never  to  be 
unfolded !  —  That  there  should  one  man  die  igno- 
rant who  had  capacity  for  Knowledge,  this  I  call 
a  tragedy,  were  it  to  happen  twenty  times  in  the 
minute,  as  by  some  computations  it  does."  l 

It  is  at  once  inspiring  and  saddening  to  find  at 
the  very  outset  of  our  social  literature  a  passage 
like  this,  with  its  profoundly  spiritual  construction 
of  the  social  problem.  For  Carlyle's  attitude  is 
still  very  rare.  The  right  of  every  man  to  material 
subsistence  has  become  a  familiar  thought  since  the 
days  of  the  old  economists,  and  the  public  now  at 
least  laments,  if  it  does  not  remedy,  the  stunted 
physique  and  bad  physical  conditions  of  the  wage- 
earner.  But  the  right  of  the  spirit  to  life  is  a 
claim  strange  to  the  majority.  Most  people  take 
it  comfortably  for  granted  that  society  has  done 
its  full  duty  to  a  man  when  it  enables  him,  by  the 
devotion  of  all  his  waking  hours,  to  provide  com- 
fortably for  his  keep.  In  the  miners'  strike  of  1897 
in  Pennsylvania,  it  was  said  that  the  death  of  a 
mule  was  regarded  by  the  operators  of  the  mines 
as  a  greater  pecuniary  loss  than  the  death  of  a 
man.  Why  ?  It  took  money  to  replace  the  mule  : 
none  to  replace  the  miner.  "  And  yet  there  must 

1  Book  iii.  ch.  IT.  "  Helotage." 


SARTOR  RESARTUS  153 

be  something  wrong,"  wrote  Carlyle  in  1833 :  "  A 
full-formed  Horse  will,  in  any  market,  bring  from 
twenty  to  as  high  as  two-hundred  Friedrichs  d'or : 
such  is  his  worth  to  the  world.  A  full-formed  Man 
is  not  only  worth  nothing  to  the  world,  but  the 
world  could  afford  him  a  round  sum  would  he 
simply  engage  to  go  and  hang  himself.  Neverthe- 
less which  of  the  two  was  the  more  cunningly-de- 
vised article,  even  as  an  Engine  ?  Good  Heavens ! 
A  white  European  Man,  standing  on  his  two  Legs, 
with  his  two  five-fingered  Hands  at  his  shackle- 
bones,  and  miraculous  Head  on  his  shoulders,  is 
worth,  I  should  say,  from  fifty  to  a  hundred 
Horses ! " 1 

Truly,  our  problems  have  not  changed.  We 
should  be  wrong,  however,  did  we  say  that  no  ad- 
vance had  been  made  since  the  emotional  utterances 
of  Carlyle.  He  recognized  the  evils  of  unemploy- 
ment and  industrial  waste.  We  have  gone  one 
step  further :  we  have  analyzed  them  by  statistics. 

While  Carlyle  brooded  in  Craigenputtock,  cer- 
tain Tories  of  the  old  school  were  thinking  in  lines 
not  wholly  dissimilar  from  his  own.  Wordsworth 
and  Southey,  too,  felt  the  dangers  springing  unper- 
ceived  from  the  new  industrial  methods.  But  they 
faced  the  past,  he  the  future ;  for  they  could  see 
the  evils,  but  could  not  construe  the  needs  of  their 
times.  Teufelsdrockh  is  no  "  Adamite,"  rejecting 
with  revolutionary  ardor  all  social  forms  on  princi- 
ple, and  pleading  with  Rousseau  for  a  return  to 
1  Book  iii.  ch.  iv.  "  Helotage." 


154       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

nature;  neither  is  he  a  conservative.  His  quest 
is  positive,  and  it  makes,  however  vaguely,  for  re- 
construction. It  is  this  quest  which  imparts  the 
impressiveness  of  suspense  to  the  mournful  pages 
of  "  Sartor."  Metaphor  after  metaphor  shows  in 
concrete  glowing  symbol  Carlyle's  one  conviction  : 
that  the  old  order  was  changing,  and  that  on  the 
moral  purpose  of  the  people  depended  the  nature 
of  the  new  order  which  should  be  born.  Let  so- 
ciety throw  aside  its  outworn  garment,  and  give 
over  cobbling  this  tear,  that  rent.  Let  it  prepare 
for  itself  a  new  garment,  clean  and  fresh.  Such 
thought  was  not  unknown ;  but  in  Carlyle's  day  it 
had  been  silenced,  seemingly  forever,  by  the  resur- 
gence of  the  tide  of  custom,  —  "  custom,  which  lies 
upon  us  with  a  weight  heavy  as  frost,  and  deep 
almost  as  life."  Never  was  a  time  when  it  would 
seem  more  strange,  more  appalling,  than  to  the 
England  of  1840,  serenely  acquiescent  in  the  things 
that  were.  The  assurance  of  social  finality  was 
natural  in  the  Middle  Ages :  comprehensible  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  But  this  assurance  has  some- 
thing almost  comical,  were  it  not  so  fatuous,  when 
we  find  it  recurring  with  redoubled  force  in  the 
commercial  society  of  the  early  Victorian  age. 
Based  on  an  industrial  revolution  of  yesterday, 
profoundly  shaken  by  a  recent  cataclysm  from 
which  Europe  had  only  just  rallied,  haunted  al- 
ready by  mutterings  from  below  portending  future 
disaster,  this  society  assumed  its  own  permanence 
with  conviction  not  to  be  stirred.  Carlyle  sounded 
anew  in  its  ears  the  hope,  the  threat,  of  change. 


SARTOR  RESARTUS  155 

He  first,  in  sober  prose,  promoted  what  Arnold  so 
keenly  desired :  the  free  play  of  consciousness 
round  things  as  they  are,  which  can  loosen  them 
from  their  conventional  moorings.  By  searching 
hint,  by  mysterious  allusion,  by  words  veiled  yet 
electric,  he  quickened  again  the  dying  consciousness 
of  social  renewal. 

This  consciousness  is  the  starting-point  of  all 
our  social  thought.  Even  in  moods  most  near  to 
despair,  its  life-communicating  power  animates  mod- 
ern literature  with  a  force  that  impels  toward  the 
unknown.  We  know  how  from  the  most  earnest 
speculation  of  earlier  centuries  such  instinct  for 
renewal  is  absent ;  absent  even  from  those  whom 
we  can  see  most  clearly  to  have  had  the  spirit  of 
the  future.  Langland,  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
marvelously  like  Carlyle  in  many  ways,  with  the 
same  burning  sense  of  social  injustice,  the  same 
reverence  for  poverty  and  labor,  yet  rested  content 
with  a  purely  ethical  plea  for  reform  of  spirit,  and 
regarded  king,  priest,  knight,  and  workman  as 
parts  of  an  immutable  social  order.  More,  with 
the  young  daring  of  the  Renascence,  dreamed  an 
ideal  state  after  Plato,  but  did  not  hope  to  see  in 
his  own  day  the  customs  of  the  Utopians  estab- 
lished in  England.  Swift,  in  the  century  of  acqui- 
escence, criticised  unsparingly,  condemned  unre- 
servedly, cried  out  in  horror,  and  paused.  Then 
came  the  Revolution.  Poets  and  statesmen  beheld 
for  one  brief  instant  the  vision  of  a  new  earth 
below  a  new  heaven,  sought  wildly  to  realize  it, 
failed,  uttered  it  in  one  burst  of  song,  and  fell  on 


156       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

silence.  With  "  Sartor  Resartus  "  sounds  again 
the  new  note :  indomitable,  though  not  triumphant. 
Tentative  it  is  now ;  charged  with  apprehension  and 
solemnity ;  yet  none  the  less  assured.  Writing  at 
the  dawn  of  revolutionary  science,  tingling  with 
a  new  historic  sense,  Carlyle  gathers  his  social 
thought  into  a  wide  cosmic  conception.  "  In  that 
fire-whirlwind,  Creation  and  Destruction  proceed 
together ;  ever  as  the  ashes  of  the  old  are  blown 
about,  do  organic  filaments  of  the  New  mysteriously 
spin  themselves ;  and  amid  the  rushing  and  the 
waving  of  the  Whirlwind  element  come  tones  of  a 
melodious  Deathsong,  which  end  not  but  in  tones 
of  a  more  melodious  Birthsong.  Nay  look  into  the 
Fire-whirlwind  with  thine  own  eyes,  and  thou  wilt 
see."1 

Full  of  passion,  expressing  solitude  and  the 
stress  of  solitude,  the  strange  little  book  speaks  in 
hints  elusive  and  abrupt.  It  is  tentative,  emo- 
tional, vague.  But  in  it  the  iconoclastic  work  of 
the  romantic  movement  at  its  acme  finds  a  climax, 
and  the  new  method  of  facing  actual  civilization 
with  open  soul,  pitiful  heart,  and  observant  mind 
finds  a  prophecy.  The  book  seems  written  by  one 
breathless  with  the  eager  strain  of  his  own  thought. 
It  is  a  torch  borne  by  a  runner  in  the  torch-race  of 
freedom  ;  its  flame  is  mingled  with  smoke,  torn, 
tossed,  even  blown  backward  by  conflicting  winds  ; 
but  it  is  living  still,  and  though  it  may  now  no 
longer  warm  nor  illumine,  it  still  serves  as  a  signal- 
fire. 

1  Book  iii.  ch.  vii.  "  Organic  Filaments." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   INDICTMENT 

WHAT  character,  in  Thackeray  or  Dickens,  can 
we  picture  reading  Carlyle  ?  Blanche  Amory  ? 
She  fed  on  Lamartine.  Agnes  Wickfield  ?  Surely, 
though  Dickens  neglects  to  mention  the  fact,  Miss 
Yonge  and  the  "  Daisy  Chain "  nurtured  her 
youth.  It  is  no  reading  public  that  the  novelists 
show  us. 

Yet  a  reading  public  there  was,  and  a  thinking 
public  also.  Heart  stirrings,  impulses  of  revolt, 
uneasy  premonitions  of  changes  and  growth,  were 
moving  below  the  placid  social  surface.  In  the 
decade  of  "  Sartor  Kesartus,"  the  Reform  Bill 
was  succeeded  by  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League ;  the 
Owenites  introduced  into  familiar  though  not  yet 
popular  use  the  word  Socialism  ;  the  first  volumes 
of  Tennyson  and  Browning  promised  the  exquisite 
art  and  searching  psychology  of  the  Victorian 
poetry  that  was  to  follow ;  John  Stuart  Mill  and 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice  began  to  be  felt  in 
their  different  ways  as  intellectual  forces,  and  the 
Oxford  Movement  quickened  in  England  a  spir- 
itual revival  which  has  proved  as  lasting  as  that 
inaugurated  by  Carlyle,  and,  in  the  long  run,  as 
charged  with  social  suggestion.  The  years  went 


158       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

on.  Chartism  gathered  gloomily  and  gloomily 
dispersed  in  the  social  heavens.  Once  more,  in 
1848,  revolutionary  idealism  led  to  disillusion. 
The  Christian  Socialism  of  Kingsley  and  Maurice, 
like  Chartism,  arose  only  to  vanish  as  a  formal 
movement,  though  not  as  a  spirit  and  an  influence. 
Mazzini  was  in  London.  Pre-Raphaelitism  in  art 
awoke  a  new  passion  for  romantic  beauty,  and, 
however  remote  in  its  earlier  phases  from  social 
feeling,  yet  unconsciously  fostered  one  of  the 
strongest  factors  in  the  later  radicalism  of  the 
century.  In  1864,  Karl  Marx  organized  "  The  In- 
ternational" in  London.  Trades-unionism  slowly 
and  silently  developed.  And  during  the  whole 
period,  evolutionary  science  was  reshaping  the 
world  of  thought. 

Through  these  fifty  years,  from  1830  to  1880, 
Carlyle,  Ruskin,  and  Arnold  were  reaching  the 
ear  of  the  privileged  classes  with  a  message  essen- 
tially the  same. 

Underlying  all  their  diverse  books  is  a  heajt- 
felt  arraignment  of  modern  society.  This  arraign- 
ment vividly  corroborates  the  social  testimony  of 
the  novelists.  The  essayists  dissect  the  same  ma- 
terialized civilization  which  Thackeray  and  Dick- 
ens present,  and  the  agreement  between  pictures 
and  analyses  is  all  the  more  striking  because 
unconscious. 

One  might  go  far,  for  instance,  in  illustrating 
the  light  Gallic  grace  and  wit  of  Thackeray  by 
the  mournful  Northern  irony  of  Carlyle.  "  Not 
welcome,  O  complex  anomaly !  "  —  the  exclama- 


THE  INDICTMENT  159 

tion  might  well  be  addressed  to  the  gentry  of 
"  Pendennis,"  "  The  Newcomes,"  and  "  Vanity 
Fair."  Perhaps  no  phrases  could  better  sum  up 
the  effect  of  polite  society  in  these  novels  than  the 
famous,  scathing,  picturesque  satire  lavished  in 
"  Past  and  Present "  on  the  "  unworking  aristo- 
cracy." "A  High  Class  without  duties  to  do  is 
like  a  tree  planted  on  precipices,  from  the  roots  of 
which  all  the  earth  has  been  crumbling."  J  "  You 
ask  him  at  the  year's  end  :  '  Where  is  your  three 
hundred  thousand  pounds  ?  What  have  you  real- 
ized to  us  with  that  ? '  He  answers,  in  indignant 
surprise  :  '  Done  with  it  ?  who  are  you  that  ask  ? 
I  have  eaten  it ;  I  and  my  flunkies  and  parasites 
and  slaves,  two-footed  and  four-footed,  in  an  orna- 
mental manner,  /am  realized  by  it  to  you.'  It 
is,  as  we  have  often  said,  such  an  answer  as  was 
never  before  given  under  this  sun."  2 

The  irony  of  the  old  Scotch  sage  was  never  so 
full  of  scornful  zest  as  when  he  directed  it  against 
the  upper  classes.  But  it  was  not  limited  to  these 
classes.  Carlyle  was  perhaps  the  first  man  in  Eng- 
land to  proclaim  that  our  epic  had  become  "  tools 
and  the  man,"  and  to  signal  the  rise  into  control- 
ling importance  of  the  great  manufacturing  class. 
As  dilettanteism  seemed  to  him  the  sin  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, so  mammonism  was  in  his  eyes  the  great 
temptation  of  the  new  "  millocracy."  The  two 
evils,  in  his  saddened  mind,  divided  the  world  of 
fact,  as  they  sometimes  seem  to  divide  the  world 
of  contemporary  fiction. 

1  Book  iii.  ch.  viii.  "  Unworking  Aristocracy." 

2  Book  iv.  ch.  vi.  "  The  Landed." 


160       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

Ruskin  gives  less  detailed  social  analysis  than 
does  his  master;  yet  a  trenchant  sentence  of  his 
lingers  in  memory,  as  one  turns  the  pages  of  some 
modern  books.  "  This  intense  apathy,"  says  Rus- 
kin, "  is  the  greatest  mystery  of  life  ;  "  and  the 
words  suggest  the  hearty  immersion  in  material 
interests  of  the  mammon- worshipers  in  Dickens,  no 
less  than  the  frivolity  of  Thackeray's  dilettantes. 
But  it  is  Matthew  Arnold  in  whose  writings  the 
social  analysis  of  modern  England  reaches  a  memo- 
rable climax.  His  famous  designations,  Barbarians, 
Philistines,  Populace,  have  a  brilliance  of  finality 
about  them.  And  they  might  as  well  have  been 
studied  from  the  types  of  fiction  as  from  the  types 
of  life.  Where  shall  we  seek  more  perfect  Bar- 
barians than  the  Marquis  of  Steyne,  or  dear  old 
Major  Pendennis  ?  Nay,  is  not  even  Colonel  New- 
come  himself,  though  one  grieve  to  say  so,  a  bit 
of  a  Barbarian,  with  more  sweetness  than  light 
about  him  ?  And  the  Middle  Class !  "Where  but 
in  Arnold's  Philistia  lives  the  society  of  Dickens  ? 
Where  else  were  born  and  bred  Mr.  Pickwick,  Mr. 
Tupper,  Mr.  Snodgrass,  Mrs.  Nickleby,  Mrs.  Gum- 
midge,  Mrs.  Micawber,  Mr.  Murdstoue,  Mr.  Grad- 
grind,  Mr.  Cheeryble,  and  a  host  of  others,  whose 
very  names  proclaim  their  birthplace?  Surely, 
Dickens'  exuberant  novels  were  in  the  critic's 
mind,  when  he  described  the  British  Philistine, 
with  his  prolific  families,  his  animalism,  his  sturdy 
honesty,  his  blankness  to  ideas.  In  one  tranquil 
terrible  phrase,  the  critic  sums  up  his  social  im- 
pression of  his  country.  England  shows  "  an 


THE  INDICTMENT  161 

upper  class  materialized,  a  middle  class  vulgarized, 
a  lower  class  brutalized."  Bear  witness,  Miss 
Crawley,  Sir  Pitt,  Becky,  Brian  Newcome  ;  bear 
witness,  Lady  Clavering,  Mrs.  Gamp,  Sedley,  Mr. 
Pecksniff ;  bear  witness,  Sikes  and  Fagin,  how 
truly  men  of  imagination  and  critics  have  surveyed 
the  same  world. 

To  analyze  the  modern  order  was  to  indict  it ; 
to  describe  was  to  condemn.  In  the  diagnosis  of 
symptoms,  our  men  of  vision  have  through  all  the 
century  been  substantially  agreed.  But  when  they 
have  tried  to  investigate  the  dim  region  of  causes, 
widely  differing  facts  have  awaited  their  discovery. 

The  condition  of  the  working-classes  was  start- 
ing-point, centre,  and  conclusion  of  the  indignant 
thought  of  Carlyle.  The  direct  evidence  of  the 
inadequacy  of  the  shepherds,  afforded  by  their  own 
character,  sank  into  insignificance  beside  the  fear- 
ful indirect  evidence  offered  by  the  suffering  of 
the  sheep.  Especially,  the  perception  of  the  false 
modes  of  life  produced  by  the  new  manufacturing 
regime  weighed  his  spirit  down.  Even  earlier 
than  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  in  his  first  original  essay, 
"  Signs  of  the  Times,"  published  by  the  "  Edin- 
burgh Review  "  in  1829,  in  the  company  of  Ma- 
caulay,  are  the  prophetic  words :  "  Ours  is  the 
age  of  machinery,  in  every  outward  and  inward 
sense  of  the  word.  .  .  .  On  every  hand,  the  living 
artisan  is  driven  from  his  workshop,  to  make  room 
for  a  speedier,  inanimate  one.  The  shuttle  drops 
from  the  fingers  of  the  weaver,  and  falls  into  iron 


162       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

fingers  that  ply  it  faster.  .  .  .  What  changes  this 
addition  of  power  is  introducing  into  the  social 
system :  how  wealth  has  more  and  more  increased, 
and  at  the  same  time  gathered  itself  more  and  more 
into  masses,  strangely  altering  the  old  relations, 
and  increasing  the  distance  between  the  rich  and 
poor,  will  be  a  question  for  Political  Economists, 
and  a  much  more  complex  and  important  one  than 
any  they  have  yet  engaged  in." 

These  words  sound  commonplace  enough  now: 
but  they  were  written  seventy  years  ago.  From 
this  time  Carlyle's  thought  never  wavered.  Bewil- 
derment grew  on  him  and  amazement  deepened, 
as  the  history  of  Europe  proceeded,  and  the  new 
proletariat  class  developed,  and  England  looked  on ; 
but  through  all  confusion,  he  felt  with  increasing 
clearness  that  if  disbelief  in  God  were  at  the  heart 
of  disorder  in  the  modern  world,  the  form  in  which 
such  disbelief  chiefly  showed  itself  was  industrial 
injustice,  proceeding  from  a  competitive  system. 
The  vague  tenderness  and  sentimental  pity  felt  by 
Shelley  and  his  fellows  for  the  "  oppressed  "  reap- 
pears in  Carlyle,  sternly  focused  upon  the  victims 
of  the  industrial  order.  "  Life  was  never  a  May 
Game  for  men.  In  all  times  the  lot  of  the  dumb 
millions  born  to  toil  was  defaced  with  manifold 
sufferings,  injustices,  heavy  burdens,  avoidable  and 
unavoidable :  not  play  at  all,  but  hard  work,  that 
made  the  sinews  sore  and  the  heart  sore.  .  .  .  And 
yet  I  will  venture  to  believe  that  in  no  time,  since 
the  beginnings  of  society,  was  the  lot  of  those  dumb 
millions  of  toilers  so  entirely  unbearable  as  it  is 


THE  INDICTMENT  163 

even  now,  in  the  days  now  passing  over  us.  It  is 
not  to  die,  or  even  to  die  of  hunger,  that  makes  a 
man  wretched ;  many  men  have  died ;  all  men  must 
die :  the  last  exit  of  us  all  is  in  a  fire-chariot  of 
pain.  But  it  is  to  live  miserable  we  know  not  why  ; 
to  work  sore  and  yet  gain  nothing;  to  be  heart- 
worn,  weary,  yet  isolated,  girt  in  with  a  cold  uni- 
versal Laissez  Faire :  it  is  to  die  slowly  all  our  life 
long,  imprisoned  in  a  deaf,  dead,  infinite  Injustice, 
as  in  the  cursed  iron  belly  of  a  Phalaris  Bull ! 
This  is  and  remains  forever  intolerable  to  all  men 
whom  God  has  made.  Do  we  wonder  at  French 
Revolutions,  Chartisms,  Revolts  of  Three  Days? 
The  times,  if  we  will  consider  them,  are  really 
unexampled."  1 

Concerning  the  economic  aspect  of  the  situation, 
Carlyle's  thought  was  elementary.  He  continued 
to  treat,  with  the  emotional  horror  of  the  first  dis- 
coverer, problems  of  over-production  and  unemploy- 
ment. The  other  evils  that  beset  society,  —  cant, 
insincerity,  restlessness,  and  the  decay  of  true 
religion,  —  all  tended  in  his  mind  to  find  source 
and  cause  in  that  social  injustice  which,  holding 
a  whole  class  in  false  conditions,  reacted  upon  all 
other  classes,  and  produced  a  feverish  unrest  whose 
origin  men  failed  to  understand.  But  close  analy- 
sis was  unknown  to  him. 

While  Carlyle  was  indicting  society  with  vehe- 
ment and  spasmodic  eloquence,  Ruskin  was  happily 
writing  his  beautiful  interpretations  of  beauty.  In 
his  message  the  English  public  found  nothing 
1  Past  and  Present,  book  iii.  ch.  xiii.  "  Democracy." 


164       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

repugnant  or  obscure,  and  "  Modern  Painters," 
"The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,"  and  "The 
Stones  of  Venice  "  met  only  enough  opposition  to 
impart  to  their  popularity  something  the  ardor  of 
a  cult.  Social  unrest  might  seem  quite  alien  to  the 
aesthetic  revival  which  these  books  did  so  much  to 
foster.  But  it  was  a  wholly  natural  transition 
which  led  Ruskin  from  criticism  of  the  fine  arts  to 
criticism  of  society.  The  last  volume  of  "  Modern 
Painters,"  in  1860,  shows  this  transition  already 
accomplished. 

For  no  enthusiast  could  be  content  to  interpret 
the  art  of  the  past  to  a  listening  England  :  he  must 
seek  to  stimulate  a  living  art  in  the  present.  When 
Ruskin  turned  to  the  present,  ^he  did  not  find  its 
aspect  encouraging.  The  first  thing  to  awaken  his 
social  conscience  was  the  ugliness  of  his  country. 
He  beheld  it  overrun  with  the  products  of  manu- 
facturing towns,  for  which  he  did  not  share  Ma- 
caulay's  admiration,  and  covered  in  larger  areas 
every  year  with  cheap,  dreary,  crowded  buildings, 
only  the  more  painful  because  contrasting  with  the 
pathetic  remains  of  beauty  bequeathed  from  ages 
when  Manchester  was  not.  In  noting  the  sharp 
difference  between  the  conditions  that  surrounded 
the  youth  of  Giorgione  and  that  of  Turner,  Ruskin 
was  yet  strictly  within  the  province  of  aesthetics ; 
but  he  was  perilously  near  to  that  of  social  reform. 
Nor  was  a  definite  statement  long  in  coming :  "  The 
beginning  of  art  is  in  getting  our  country  clean  and 
our  people  beautiful."  l  "  Beautiful  art  can  only 

1  Lectures  on  Art,  sec.  116. 


THE  INDICTMENT  165 

be  produced  by  people  who  have  beautiful  things 
around  them  and  leisure  to  look  at  them ;  and  un- 
less you  provide  some  elements  of  beauty  for  your 
workmen  to  be  surrounded  by,  you  will  find  that 
no  elements  of  beauty  can  be  invented  by  them."  l 

The  emphasis  in  Ruskin's  social  arraignment 
fell  then  first  of  all  on  those  displeasing  outward 
conditions  which  had  certainly  never  arrested  nor 
troubled  for  a  moment  the  peasant-eyes  of  Carlyle. 
But  no  man  could  stop  there.  The  next  step  was 
to  inquire  into  the  causes  of  these  conditions.  As 
he  inquired,  he  became  assured  that  such  causes 
lay  deep  in  the  character  of  the  modern  industrial 
system.  And  so,  starting  with  entirely  different 
facts,  Ruskin's  social  diagnosis  came  wholly  to 
agree  with  that  of  the  austere  Scotch  sage  whom 
by  this  time  he  had  learned  to  call  master.  Com- 
petition, the  rise  of  machine  industry,  and  the  sup- 
pression of  hand  labor ;  the  growth  of  new  relations 
between  employers  and  employed ;  in  short,  the 
concentration  under  new  conditions  of  an  immense 
working-class,  —  these  were  phenomena  that  seemed 
to  him  all  the  more  portentous  and  dangerous  be- 
cause society  accepted  them  with  so  perfect  a  com- 
placency. 

Practical  experiment  came  to  the  aid  of  general 
observation.  Ruskin  really  tried  to  arouse  in  Eng- 
land, even  taking  it  as  it  was,  the  creative  impulse : 
to  stimulate  at  least  those  humble  decorative  arts 
which,  as  he  believed,  must  flourish  before  High 
Art,  in  any  true  sense,  could  appear.  And  here, 
1  The  Two  Paths,  Lecture  III. 


166       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

too,  the  disillusion  that  quickens  awaited  him. 
The  nearer  to  the  life  of  actual  wage-earners  he 
came  in  his  experiments,  the  more  his  sense  of 
some  great  wrong  was  strengthened.  He  was  ac- 
customed in  thought  to  the  exquisite  work  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  of  the  early  Renascence ;  and  he 
believed  that  all  true  art  must  be,  as  in  these  ages, 
the  expression  of  a  common  life,  and  must  spring 
from  the  heart  of  the  people.  But  he  found  that 
even  the  physical  healthfulness  of  labor  was  de- 
stroyed habitually  by  false  conditions  of  time  and 
pay ;  and  that  its  educational  connotation  was 
destroyed,  if  not  habitually  yet  in  countless  cases, 
by  the  mechanical  character  of  modern  industry. 
The  craftsman  of  the  Renascence  passed  instinc- 
tively into  the  artist,  and  the  artist  ranked  himself 
with  the  craftsman,  as  the  bottega  of  Donatello  or 
of  Andrea  may  testify ;  but  the  manual  worker  of 
to-day  loses,  when  hardly  more  than  a  child,  all 
spring  of  spontaneity,  all  impulse  toward  creation. 
In  this  respect,  at  least,  the  growth  of  social  fellow- 
ship since  Ruskin's  time  has  only  confirmed  his 
conclusion.  No  one  can  live  intimately  among 
working-people  without  feeling  the  invisible  bond- 
age which  prevents  in  them  the  evolution  of  the 
higher  productive  powers.  In  the  days  of  handi- 
craft, work  was  its  own  reward :  it  is  so  no  longer. 
The  professional  classes  possibly  work  as  hard  as 
manual  laborers.  But  their  work  is  life.  The 
activities  of  teacher,  doctor,  lawyer,  merchant,  how- 
ever strenuous  and  protracted,  are  interesting. 
They  employ,  cultivate,  delight,  the  higher  faculties. 


THE  INDICTMENT  167 

But  to  iron  two  thousand  linen  collars  a  day,  to 
spend  the  bright  hours  "  busheling "  in  a  tailor- 
shop,  to  carry  on  any  one  of  the  minute  occupations 
introduced  by  the  division  of  labor,  leaves  people 
where  it  found  them,  only  a  little  more  stupefied. 
The  real  life  of  the  modern  wage-earner  must  lie 
without,  not  within  his  trade  ;  and  he  has  freedom 
for  it  only  in  the  weary  evening  hours  after  work 
is  done,  on  Sundays  and  holidays.  Philanthropists, 
awake  to  the  lack  of  resource  in  the  lives  of  work- 
ing-people, are  trying  nowadays  to  give  them  some 
share  in  the  interests  that  make  so  large  a  part  of 
existence  for  the  privileged  public.  They  know 
well  how  all  offers  of  delightful  things  —  art, 
music,  learning,  even  sociability  —  are  hampered 
and  almost  nullified  by  the  fact  that  those  to  whom 
they  are  offered  have  literally  no  leisure  for  enjoy- 
ment, or  at  best  only  tired  odds  and  ends  of  time, 
after  a  long  day's  work.  To  this  state  of  things 
one  might  be  reconciled  were  it  necessary  and 
universal ;  but  history  reveals  that  while  the  ma- 
terial conditions  of  the  wage-earner  in  the  past  may 
sometimes  have  been  worse  than  at  present,  yet 
at  times  there  have  been  industrial  conditions 
that  have  neither  suppressed  personal  expression 
nor  destroyed  personal  freedom.  John  Ruskin 
was  first  to  raise  the  cry  that  the  arts  can  never 
flourish  as  a  class  monopoly,  and  that  they  will 
remain  decadent  until  the  moralizing  of  industry 
shall  bring  freedom  to  the  nation  as  a  whole.  It  is 
a  cry  which  artists  have  never  dropped  from  his 
day  to  our  own. 


168       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

So  Ruskin  was  led  by  his  very  artist-nature  to 
strong  social  discontent.  But  he  did  not  limit 
himself  to  the  aesthetic  point  of  view.  Once  face 
to  face  with  the  pain  of  the  world,  his  sensitive 
nature  thrilled  to  its  every  phase.  The  outward 
ugliness  of  our  sordid  civilization,  so  oppressive  to 
his  temperament,  became  only  type  and  symbol  of 
the  apathy,  and  vulgarity,  and  even  the  cruelty  of 
its  spirit.  His  later  books  throb  with  an  indigna- 
tion and  discouragement  which  at  times  impart  to 
his  naturally  ornate  and  flowing  style  a  new  dignity, 
and  again  break  it  into  whimsical  or  extravagant 
expressions  sadly  open  to  misconception.  The 
dominant  strain  of  these  books  is  elegiac ;  it  is  a 
strain  which  finds  perhaps  its  fullest  phrasing  in 
the  great  lecture  on  "  The  Mystery  of  Life  and  its 
Arts." 

"What  has  all  this  4 Might'  of  humanity  ac- 
complished, in  six  thousand  years  of  labor  and 
sorrow  ?  What  has  it  done  ?  Take  the  three  chief 
occupations  and  arts  of  men,  and  count  their 
achievements.  -Begin  with  the  first,  the  lord  of 
them  all,  —  agriculture.  Six  thousand  years  have 
passed  since  we  were  set  to  till  the  ground  from 
which  we  were  taken.  How  much  of  it  is  tilled  ? 
How  much  of  that  which  is,  wisely  or  well  ?  .  .  . 
Then  after  agriculture,  the  art  of  kings,  take  the 
next  head  of  human  arts,  —  weaving;  the  art  of 
queens,  honored  of  all  noble  heathen  women  in  the 
person  of  their  virgin  goddess,  honored  of  all  Hebrew 
women  by  the  word  of  their  wisest  king.  .  .  .  What 
have  we  done  in  all  these  thousands  of  years  with 


THE  INDICTMENT  169 

this  bright  art  of  Greek  maid  and  Christian  matron  ? 
Six  thousand  years  of  weaving,  and  have  we  learned 
to  weave  ?  Might  not  every  naked  wall  have  been 
purple  with  tapestry,  and  every  feeble  breast  fenced 
with  sweet  colors  from  the  cold  ?  What  have  we 
done  ?  Our  fingers  are  too  few,  it  seems,  to  twist 
together  some  poor  covering  for  our  bodies.  We 
set  our  streams  to  work  for  us,  and  choke  the  air 
with  fire  to  turn  our  spinning-wheels,  and,  are  we 
yet  clothed  ?-..:.  Lastly,  take  the  art  of  Building : 
the  strongest,  proudest,  most  orderly,  most  endur- 
ing, of  the  arts  of  man.  ...  In  six  thousand  years 
of  building,  what  have  we  done  ?  .  .  .  The  ant  and 
the  moth  have  cells  for  each  of  their  young,  but 
our  little  ones  lie  in  festering  heaps,  in  homes  that 
consume  them  like  graves ;  and  night  by  night, 
from  the  corners  of  our  streets,  rises  up  the  cry  of 
the  homeless :  '  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me 
not  in.' " 

No  such  strain  as  this  can  be  found  in  the  social 
criticism  of  Matthew  Arnold.  His  elegiac  note  had 
been  abandoned  when  he  turned-  from  poetry  to 
prose.  It  had  been  pure,  sincere,  troubling.  It 
had  dealt,  not  with  great  social  facts  and  issues, 
but  with  the  pain  of  the  sensitive  soul,  ill  at  ease 
among  the  play  of  mighty  forces  half  understood 
and  wholly  distrusted. 

"  But  we,  brought  forth  and  reared  in  hours 
Of  change,  alarm,  surprise, 
What  shelter  to  grow  ripe  is  ours, 
What  leisure  to  grow  wise  ? 

"  Like  children  bathing  on  the  shore, 
Buried  a  wave  beneath, 


170       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

The  second  wave  succeeds,  before 
We  have  had  time  to  breathe." 1 

When  the  poet  of  the  inner  life  turned  to  study 
of  the  wider  aspects  of  civilization,  he  abandoned 
once  for  all  any  display  of  emotion.  In  appeal, 
invective,  metaphor,  he  did  not  deal.  In  place  of 
a  style  like  that  of  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  each  in 
his  way  so  highly  colored,  impassioned,  and  lyrical, 
Arnold  wrote  the  coolest  of  satire,  expressed  in  the 
most  pellucid  of  English.  To  pass  to  him  from 
Carlyle  is  to  pass  from  the  scorching  heat  of  smoky, 
crimson  flame  to  a  white  electric  flash :  perhaps,  of 
the  two,  the  flash  is  the  more  deadly. 

Arnold  had  a  new  quarrel  with  modern  English 
civilization :  not  that  it  was  wicked ;  not  that  it  was 
unlovely:  but  that  it  was  absurd.  The  son  of  a 
great  educator,  himself  educator  as  well  as  man  of 
letters,  his  attention  was  arrested  neither  by  the 
industrial  nor  by  the  aesthetic,  but  by  the  intellec- 
tual conditions  of  England.  When  he  mentions  in- 
dustrial unrest  or  distress,  as  in  the  brilliant  fourth 
section  of  the  chapter  on  "  Our  Liberal  Practition- 
ers," in  "Culture  and  Anarchy,"  it  is  half -impa- 
tiently, as  if  adducing  simply  one  more  witness  to 
our  general  folly.  Seldom  indeed  does  the  misery 
of  the  wage-earners  give  his  readers  a  pang.  His 
attention  is  directed  to  the  great  middle  class, 
under  whose  reign  we  live,  the  prosperous  class 
which  is  so  far  the  one  apparent  success  of  demo- 
cracy, the  solid  general  public  for  whom  the  labors 
of  the  proletariat  are  spent ;  and  he  shows  that  the 
1  Stanzas  in  Memory  of  the  Author  of  Obermann. 


THE  INDICTMENT  171 

results  of  the  sacrifice  are  not  worth  while.  For 
that  which  impresses  him  in  the  English  public  is 
its  utter  iinperviousness  to  ideas.  He  finds  it  pig- 
headed, narrow,  self-assertive,  fanatical,  devoid  of 
sweetness,  devoid  of  light.  Yet  in  his  own  fashion, 
he  repeats  the  note  of  the  rugged  old  Scotch  seer, 
for  the  age  seems  materialized  to  him  as  to  his 
predecessors,  though  he  deplores  the  effect  of  this 
materialism  in  the  sphere  of  mind  rather  than  in 
the  sphere  of  morals.  "  The  age  is  mechanical," 
Carlyle  had  written  in  1829.  "  Faith  in  machin- 
ery," wrote  Arnold  in  1867,  "  is  our  besetting 
danger."  1  That  "  the  cities  it  had  built,  the  rail- 
roads it  had  made,  the  manufactures  it  had  pro- 
duced" constituted  the  glory  and  greatness  of 
England,  this  popular  idea  is  the  chief  butt  of 
Arnold's  scorn.  "  And  if  we  are  sometimes  a 
little  troubled  by  our  multitude  of  poor  men,  yet 
we  know  the  increase  of  manufactures  and  popu- 
lation to  be  such  a  salutary  thing  in  itself,  and  our 
free-trade  policy  begets  such  an  admirable  move- 
ment, creating  fresh  centres  of  industry  and  fresh 
poor  men  here,  while  we  were  thinking  about  our 
poor  men  there,  that  we  are  quite  dazzled  and 
borne  away,  and  more  and  more  industrial  move- 
ment is  called  for,  and  our  social  progress  seems  to 
become  one  triumphant  and  enjoyable  course  of 
what  is  sometimes  called,  vulgarly,  outrunning  the 
constable."  2  Stupidity,  prejudice,  and  ineptitude, 
whether  in  our  economic  theories,  our  religious  life, 

1  Culture  and  Anarchy,  ch.  i. 

2  Ch.  vi. 


172       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

or  our  literary  standards,  —  these  are  the  sins  that 
Arnold  tried  to  bring  home  to  the  intelligence  of 
his  countrymen. 

So,  from  one  point  of  view  or  another,  the  great 
arraignment  of  modern  society  on  spiritual  lines 
goes  on.  At  times  the  emphasis  falls  on  moral 
defects :  again  on  aesthetic :  again  on  intellectual ; 
but  of  self-satisfaction,  of  exultation  in  the  existing 
conditions,  the  thoughtful  writers  of  the  Victorian 
era  show  no  trace.  The  moribund  classes  offer  no 
heroes;  among  the  adolescent,  no  common  ideal 
has  yet  appeared,  to  make  regret  for  the  past  super- 
fluous by  uplifting  the  banner  of  some  high  social 
aim :  discontent  is  the  order  of  the  day.  We  have 
traveled  far  in  ideas  since  the  time  of  Macaulay. 

It  is  easy  to  say  that  the  modern  situation  offers 
no  novelty.  The  moralist  has  always  inveighed 
against  riches,  and  the  world  has  always  made  them 
the  key  to  success.  Yet  the  instinct  of  our  social 
critics  is  sound.  For  the  standard  of  wealth  has 
never  had  a  chance  to  prevail  quite  so  exclusively 
as  it  threatens  to  do  in  a  mercantile  democracy. 
In  society  either  militant  or  hierarchical,  other 
standards,  of  rank  or  personal  valor,  have  at  least 
coexisted  with  the  standard  of  money.  Now  nei- 
ther rank  nor  force  is  devoid  of  spiritual  signifi- 
cance. Each  appeals  to  the  imagination,  perhaps 
on  account  of  a  certain  personal  element,  because 
it  carries  a  dim  suggestion  of  past  risk,  audacity, 
sacrifice.  These  standards  are  not  yet  wholly 
obliterated  either  in  Europe,  or  in  America.  But 
during  a  peaceful  age,  where  industrial  interests 


THE  INDICTMENT  173 

prevail,  they  become  fainter  and  fainter,  till  the 
crude  material  standard  seems  at  times  to  be  left 
almost  in  solitude,  to  appeal  in  blank  candor  to 
the  children  of  the  world. 

The  most  impressive  point  of  agreement  among 
our  authors  is  their  sense  of  impending  change ;  for 
the  sense  of  flux  and  instability  in  the  social  order 
deepens  as  the  century  goes  on.  The  men  of  1830 
believed  that  the  revolution  was  past ;  the  men  of 
1840,  of  1860,  of  1870,  are  at  one  in  believing  that 
it  is  to  come.  They  live  facing  its  approach.  Of 
its  nature  they  are  not  sure :  how  to  meet  it,  they 
are  pathetically  uncertain ;  but  that  a  more  search- 
ing and  subversive  social  change  than  the  world 
has  ever  known  is  imminent,  they  are  with  one 
accord  completely  assured.  Again  and  again  they 
lift  their  warning  note.  Every  five  years,  every 
ten,  into  a  civilization  feverishly  and  helplessly 
developing  a  competitive  system,  ignorant  of  its 
own  tendencies,  conies  a  cry  of  protest  and  of  fear. 
Carlyle  reiterates  in  every  book  the  note  of  "  Sartor 
Resartus."  "  There  must  be  a  new  world,  if  there 
is  to  be  any  world  at  all,  "  l  wrote  he  in  1850.  His 
emotional  rhetoric  seemed  a  little  hysterical  to  the 
average  man ;  but  Arnold,  the  cool,  the  collected, 
twenty  years  later,  took  up  the  same  strain.  The 
very  title  of  his  most  important  book,  "Culture 
and  Anarchy,"  showed  the  construction  placed  by 
him  upon  the  present  order.  His  feeling  for  the 
gravity  of  the  situation  is  all  the  more  impressive 
from  his  habitual  air  of  understatement:  "Our 
1  Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  "The  Present  Time." 


174       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

present  social  organization  has  been  an  appointed 
stage  in  our  growth ;  it  has  been  of  good  use,  and 
has  enabled  us  to  do  great  things.  But  the  use  is 
at  an  end,  and  the  stage  is  over.  Ask  yourselves 
if  you  do  not  sometimes  feel  in  yourselves  a  sense 
that  in  spite  of  the  strenuous  efforts  for  good  of  so 
many  excellent  persons  among  us,  we  begin  some- 
how to  flounder,  and  to  beat  the  air ;  that  we  seem 
to  be  finding  ourselves  stopped  on  this  line  of 
advance  and  on  that,  and  to  be  threatened  with  a 
kind  of  standstill.  It  is  that  we  are  trying  to  live 
on  with  a  social  organization  of  which  the  day  is 
over." 1 

There  is  something  either  ludicrous  or  sinister, 
as  one  chooses  to  take  it,  in  this  steady  insistence 
on  imminent  danger,  during  half  a  century  of  out- 
ward quietude.  One  call  of  warning  and  of  fear 
echoes  down  the  decades,  aud  if  not  wearied  we 
must  be  awed  by  the  iteration.  We  may  well  ask 
whether  it  has  any  significance  ;  whether  the  social 
revolution  is  nearer  in  1900  than  in  1840  or  1860. 
Men  asked  a  similar  question  at  intervals  through 
the- eighteenth  century ;  they  were  asking  it  in  1788, 
one  year  before  the  Bastille  was  taken. 

1  Essay  on  Equality. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  NEW  INTUITION 

SOMETIMES,  in  the  history  of  the  race,  a  new 
intuition  appears.  When  this  happens,  it  puts  to 
flight  the  wrangling  of  generations.  Power  to  cre- 
ate such  an  intuition  is  the  final  test  of  any  theory ; 
to  prepare  for  it  is  well  worth  the  strife  of  ages : 
once  created,  it  conquers  ;  but  its  formation  is  out 
of  the  ken  and  range  of  conscious  human  effort. 
With  opinions  or  reasoning  it  has  nothing  to  do ; 
it  underlies  all  reasoning,  and  is  the  evidence  that 
an  opinion  has  sunk  below  discussion  into  being. 

Such  was  that  instinct  for  religious  toleration 
now  almost  universal.  It  took  centuries  to  evolve. 
It  had  many  and  excellent  arguments  as  well  as 
brute  force  marshaled  against  its  pleading.  It 
fought,  endured,  was  routed,  replied,  —  but  won  its 
final  victory  in  subconscious  regions,  till  men  slowly 
woke  to  recognize  that  the  controverted  principle 
had  become  a  master-impulse,  before  which  discus- 
sion was  of  no  avail.  It  had  entered  life,  it  had 
shaped  new  types  of  character;  and  when  this 
happens,  the  victory  of  a  principle  is  assured. 

Assumptions  are  premature  ;  yet  it  would  surely 
seem  that  the  same  process  is  going  on  to-day  in 
another  province.  The  belief  that  all  the  mani- 


176       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

fold  gifts  of  life  should  be  equally  open  to  all  liv- 
ing was  not  even  a  theory  two  hundred  years  ago. 
In  the  Athenian  democracy,  the  bondage  of  many 
slaves  made  possible  the  exquisite  freedom  of  the 
citizen.  In  Christian  ages,  no  pure  democracy  has 
existed.  But  let  us  never  forget  that  just  behind 
the  nineteenth  century  lies  a  new  social  ideal, 
mighty,  destructive,  creative.  The  remembered  is 
the  immortal.  Once  trusted  to  race-memory,  that 
most  subtle  and  compelling  force,  an  idea  can  bide 
its  time.  The  poets  might  suddenly  abandon  their 
fervors  for  liberty;  the  Church  might  extend  se- 
date hands  of  benediction  over  the  children  of  the 
established  fact ;  a  travesty  of  freedom,  based  on 
the  prosperity  of  the  bourgeois  and  the  extension 
of  the  ballot,  might  speciously  conceal  the  real  con- 
trol of  that  grim  task-master,  competition.  Yet  not 
all  the  apathy  and  delusion  bemoaned  by  our  social 
prophets  could  wholly  or  forever  befog  the  radi- 
ant vision  of  a  spiritual  democracy.  Ideals,  when 
ignored,  have  a  way  of  turning  to  threats.  From 
all  the  noblest  and  deepest  thinkers  of  the  age,  we 
have  heard  the  solemn  and  insistent  note  of  social 
warning;  modern  events  also,  as  they  proceeded, 
offered  many  sinister  hints  of  danger.  Manches- 
ter insurrections,  bread-riots.  Chartism,  Trades- 
unionism  in  its  early  violence  and  later  efficiency, 
strikes,  lockouts,  all  the  phases  and  episodes  of  in- 
dustrial struggle,  have  had  plenty  to  say  to  those 
who  would  hear.  Yet  not  by  such  means  may  we 
mark  the  true  advance  of  the  social  ideal,  nor  pre- 
dict its  destiny,  but  rather  by  a  secret  and  inward 


THE  NEW  INTUITION  177 

change  wrought  in  the  souls  of  men.  "  The  meek 
shall  inherit  the  earth  "  was  a  word  spoken  nine- 
teen hundred  years  ago,  and  forgotten  during  cen- 
turies, while  people  insisted  that  it  was  quite 
enough  for  the  meek  to  cherish  the  hope  of  inher- 
iting the  heavens.  A  hundred  years  ago,  the  old 
word  was  reasserted,  with  a  note  of  renewed  reso- 
lution in  its  prophecy.  Since  then  it  has  been 
discussed,  ridiculed,  analyzed,  denied,  defended,  — 
and  unrealized ;  nor  can  we  say  that  its  cause  is  as 
yet  intellectually  either  lost  or  won.  Meanwhile, 
the  demand  that  the  earth-heritage  be  thrown  open 
on  equal  terms  to  all  men  has  been  sinking  deep 
into  the  hearts  of  quiet  people,  till  here  and  there, 
to  him  who  has  the  gift  to  see  secret  things  and 
hidden  forces,  appears  something  more  striking 
than  battalioned  arguments,  or  workmen :  a  man 
or  woman  to  whom  this  demand  has  become  no 
longer  a  theory  to  be  pressed,  but  an  intuition  to 
be  followed.  Conviction  has  become  faith,  and 
faith,  in  the  end,  achieves  all  things.  Even  to  the 
mountain  of  social  prejudice  and  class-interest  it 
may  say :  "  Be  thou  removed,  and  cast  into  the 
sea  of  oblivion."  When  once  a  theory  has  changed 
into  a  regulating  instinct,  feeling  its  way  toward 
conduct,  the  day  of  its  victory  is  at  hand.  The 
quiet  assumptions  of  the  simple  are  thus  the  record 
of  the  intellectual  conflicts  of  the  strong. 

In  an  age  marked  by  a  deliberate  assertion  that 
no  man  is  his  brother's  keeper,  and  that  "laissez 
faire  "  is  the  right  continuance  of  natural  law,  has 
been  heard  the  "  Ave "  of  a  great  Annunciation. 


178       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

Nor  can  the  message  be  silenced  by  statements  that 
it  has  never  been  heard  nor  received  before.  To 
say  that  the  many  have  always  labored  that  the 
few  might  enjoy,  that  no  civilization  has  ever  been 
able  to  subsist  without  class-distinctions,  that  the 
poor  have  always  suffered  and  lived  and  died 
ignored,  is  only  to  say  that  never  before  has  the 
angel  of  brotherhood  visited  society  with  his  holy 
message  of  freedom.  Would  we  learn  the  power 
of  his  message,  we  must  not  turn  to  the  great  world 
of  action  and  thought,  but  to  the  quiet  hearts  that 
keep  it  and  ponder.  Deeper  than  all  theories,  apart 
from  all  discussion,  the  mighty  instinct  for  social 
justice  shaped  the  hearts  that  were  ready  to  receive 
it.  The  personal  types  thus  created  are  the  certain 
harbingers  of  the  victory  of  the  cause  of  freedom. 
The  heralds  of  freedom,  they  are  also  its  martyrs. 
The  delicate  vibrations  of  their  consciousness  thrill 
through  the  larger  social  self  which  more  stolid 
people  still  ignore,  and  the  pain  of  the  world  is 
their  own.  Not  for  one  instant  can  they  know  an 
undimmed  joy  in  art,  in  thought,  in  nature,  while 
part  of  their  very  life  throbs  in  the  hunger  of  the 
multitudes  of  the  dispossessed.  All  this  by  no 
virtue,  no  choice  of  their  own.  So  were  they  born  : 
the  children  of  the  new  age,  whom  the  new  intuition 
governs.  In  days  when  the  misery  of  the  poor  and 
the  false  conditions  of  the  working-classes  press 
nearer  than  ever  before  to  the  thought  of  the  most 
indifferent,  these  more  sensitive  souls  must  suffer, 
—  suffer  with  a  purely  inward  torture,  which  only  in 
rare  moments  can  they  believe  to  hold  in  itself  some 


THE  NEW  INTUITION  179 

expiatory  grace.  Some  of  them  are  held  by  inex- 
orable circumstance  to  their  places  in  the  mechan- 
ical routine  of  life :  aware,  and  helplessly  aware,  as 
they  eat  and  dress  and  sleep  under  fair  shelter,  and 
share  in  the  higher  pleasures  and  ambitions  of 
culture,  that  those  laboring  people  who  have  pro- 
duced all  these  good  things,  or  our  freedom  to  enjoy 
them,  are  themselves  shut  away  from  luxuries,  phy- 
sical or  mental,  in  the  stagnation  of  ignorance  or 
fatigue.  Others,  more  fortunate,  go  forth  silently 
and  unobtrusively  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the 
unprivileged.  By  personal  renunciation  of  luxury 
and  of  the  goods  of  commercialism,  by  sharing 
their  best  material  possessions,  and  their  best  selves 
too,  they  seek  to  escape  so  far  as  may  be  the  taint 
of  sin.  Few,  these  children  of  the  new  age  are 
increasing  in  number.  In  every  country,  out  of 
every  class  they  gather :  men  and  women  vowed  to 
simplicity  of  life  and  to  social  service ;  possessed 
by  a  force  mightier  than  themselves,  over  which 
they  have  no  control ;  aware  of  the  lack  of  social 
harmony  in  our  civilization,  restless  with  pain, 
perplexity,  distress,  yet  filled  with  deep  inward 
peace  as  they  obey  the  imperative  claim  of  a  wid- 
ened consciousness.  By  active  ministry,  and  yet 
more  by  prayer  and  fast  and  vigil,  they  seek  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  spiritual  democracy  on 
which  their  souls  are  set.  • 


CHAPTER  VI 

GEORGE   ELIOT   AND   THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE 

THESE  souls  of  the  new  order  George  Eliot  was 
first  among  English  novelists  to  recognize  and 
describe.  Probably  this  is  because  she  was  herself 
one  of  them.  Her  books  express  the  restless  and 
inquiring  mood  of  the  central  Victorian  period. 
It  is  no  longer  enough  to  picture  life,  as  do  the 
earlier  novelists  :  with  George  Eliot,  we  seek  to 
wrest  from  life  its  hidden  secrets.  Her  attitude  is 
that  of  the  thinking  people  of  her  time:  deeply 
agitated  by  ethical  problems,  trying  earnestly  to 
adjust  itself  to  widening  horizons  and  to  contracting 
skies. 

The  interests  that  controlled  English  thought 
between  1830  and  1870  were  chiefly  religious ;  and 
the  most  obvious  fact  about  George  Eliot's  novels 
is  their  spiritual  appeal.  To  run  over  the  tables  of 
contents  in  the  leading  magazines  during  these  years, 
and  compute  proportion  of  subjects,  would  con- 
vince any  one  that  religious  speculation  dominated 
all  otner  questions  in  the  mind  of  the  reading  pub- 
lic. From  the  beginning  of  the  period,  a  yearning 
for  the  religious  temper  met  a  profound  discontent 
with  religious  formulae.  The  most  life-communi- 
cating men  of  the  day,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Cardinal 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  181 

Newman,  Spencer,  Harrison,  Maurice,  were  all  in 
one  way  or  another  of  the  religious  type.  The 
iconoclastic  instinct,  in  matters  spiritual,  had  ceased 
to  give  pleasure,  and  almost  every  leader  of  skepti- 
cal thought  was  in  his  own  way  making  efforts 
toward  construction.  A  fresh  and  mighty  synthetic 
principle  was  introduced  into  the  thought-world  as 
years  went  on  by  the  scientific  theory  formulated 
by  the  followers  of  Darwin  ;  and  as  soon  as  it  ap- 
peared and  made  its  significance  felt,  earnest  minds 
took  up  the  attempt  to  correlate  the  religious  in- 
stinct with  evolutionary  ethics.  Of  all  the  people 
engaged  in  this  endeavor,  George  Eliot  was  the 
most  vividly  human.  Every  one  of  her  books  bears 
witness  to  the  painstaking  ardor  of  her  attempts  at 
readjustment,  the  sincerity  of  spirit  with  which  she 
sought  to  replace  the  sanctions  for  high  morality 
once  found  in  dogma  by  new  sanctions,  equally 
stringent,  found  in  natural  law. 

To  transform  morals  and  art  by  the  infusion  of 
evolutionary  ideas  —  to  find  in  the  revelation  of 
the  forces  that  had  shaped  the  visible  universe  a 
substitute  for  the  old  revelation  from  the  Invisible 
on  which  humanity  had  been  used  to  lean — might 
seem  quest  absorbing  enough  for  one  generation. 
But  progress  was  breathlessly  rapid  during  that 
half  -  century ;  nor  can  we  fully  account  for  the 
genesis  of  George  Eliot's  books  without  a  new 
factor.  Her  work  is  as  important  in  its  social  as 
in  its  religious  aspect.  It  is  profoundly  significant 
as  marking  the  transition  between  a  period  pre- 
occupied with  relations  of  life  and  evolution  to  that 


182       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FA  THERS 

next  period,  in  which  we  still  live,  quite  as  intensely 
absorbed  with  the  relations  of  life  and  democracy. 
The  first  order  of  problems  was  her  chief  conscious 
interest,  as  it  was  that  of  the  circle  in  which  she 
moved ;  to  the  second,  her  books  bear  witness  all 
the  stronger  because  largely  unconscious. 

No  one,  reading  her,  can  fail  to  see  the  close 
connection  by  which  the  one  order  of  thought  led 
into  the  other.  The  tremendous  contribution  made 
by  evolutionary  ethics  to  the  social  ideal  can  hardly 
be  overrated.  George  Eliot,  first  of  imaginative 
writers,  was  alive  to  the  solemn  and  formative 
power  of  heredity  and  environment,  and  their 
shaping  force  in  the  determination  of  duty.  From 
"Romola"  to  "  The  Spanish  Gypsy"  and  "  Daniel 
Deronda,"  her  plots  are  constructed  almost  wholly 
to  show  how  all  personal  passions  and  desires,  how- 
ever laudable,  should  yield  if  they  come  in  contact 
with  the  great  principles  which  carry  the  race 
onward  toward  expanding  life.  Study  of  these 
inexorable  principles  quickens  in  thought  a  new 
sense  of  the  organic  relation  of  each  atom  to  the 
social  whole.  George  Eliot's  finer  characters  rec- 
ognize with  wonder  or  feel  with  constraining  force 
the  relation  of  the  individual  experience  to  that 
human  past  from  which  it  sprang,  that  present 
which  surrounds  it,  that  future  which  it  must  help 
to  create.  Their  intense  social  consciousness  is 
possible  only  to  an  age  which  had  outlived  revolu- 
tion in  history,  and  was  facing  evolution  in  thought. 
Evolutionary  ethics  directly  led  the  way  to  an 
enlarged  recognition  of  social  responsibility.  This 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  183 

recognition  was,  as  we  have  seen,  entirely  lacking 
in  society  as  pictured  by  Dickens  and  Thackeray : 
George  Eliot  is  the  first  novelist  to  show  us  a 
society  in  which  it  is  at  work. 

Even  apart  from  this  great  achievement,  the 
social  value  of  her  books  is  high.  With  her  two 
brilliant  predecessors,  she  completes  the  social  sur- 
vey of  the  Victorian  novel.  She  was  bred  in  the 
country,  close  in  heart  and  origin  to  the  agricultural 
life  of  England ;  and  her  early  books,  "  Adam 
Bede,"  "Silas  Marner,"  and  "The  Mill  on  the 
Floss,"  reflect  this  life,  in  all  its  quaint  and  leisurely 
charm.  An  England  uninvaded  by  competition  or 
spiritual  unrest,  where  telegrams  are  unknown  and 
the  railroad  is  a  distant  rumor,  —  an  England 
unchanged  in  essentials  from  the  time  of  Shake- 
speare, —  smiles  on  us  from  these  fair  and  serene 
pages.  All  this  attractive  life  belongs  to  the  past. 
To-day,  Dolly  Winthrop  can  hardly  keep  the  quaint 
naivete  of  her  theology,  nor  can  it  be  easy  even  in 
quiet  corners  to  find  Mrs.  Poyser  superintending 
the  butter,  or  Mrs.  Tulliver  weeping  over  the  family 
linen.  But  George  Eliot  gave  us  a  real  gift  in 
these  kindly  pictures  of  the  England  of  her  girl- 
hood, showing  the  honesty  and  simplicity,  the 
strong  uprightness,  the  tranquil  intelligence  inde- 
pendent of  book-learning,  that  lingered  in  the  rural 
population  before  the  word  or  thing  "  Proletariat " 
was  thought  of. 

These  early  books  are  the  most  winning  that 
George  Eliot  ever  wrote.  Perhaps  this  is  because 
the  best  art  has  a  way  of  springing  from  the  heart 


184       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

of  childish  memories ;  perhaps  because  her  subjects 
have  great  intrinsic  beauty.  To  invest  the  lives  of 
the  ignorant  and  simple  with  pathos,  dignity,  and 
charm  was  almost  a  new  departure  for  fiction  when 
she  began  to  create.  Nothing  more  clearly  evi- 
dences the  strength  of  the  impulse  which  sends  our 
sophisticated  world  back  to  nature,  than  the  growth 
since  her  day  of  the  attraction  which  drew  her. 
Under  the  guidance  of  Hardy,  of  Verga,  of  Tolstoi, 
we  are  coming  to  feel  that  the  noblest  art,  because 
the  most  sincere,  is  that  which  reveals  the  free 
movement  of  elemental  human  passions  in  the  large 
simplicity  of  the  lives  of  the  poor.  George  Eliot's 
early  books  take  their  place  in  a  great  literary 
group,  strongly  expressive  of  one  phase  in  the  most 
modern  social  feeling. 

But  her  later  looks,  if  they  probe  less  deep  into 
primal  instincts,  have  a  more  direct  bearing  on  the 
problems  that  perplex  us,  and  therefore  a  keener 
interest  for  the  artificial  creatures  that  we  have  be- 
come. She  turned  from  those  delightful  pastorals 
where  the  idyllic,  the  grotesque,  and  the  profoundly 
human  blend  in  so  tranquil  a  harmony ;  she  de- 
scribed the  stirrings  of  discontent,  the  seething  of 
new  forces,  in  the  England  of  the  central  Victorian 
period.  After  "  Silas  Marner,"  her  books  reflect 
the  interests  of  the  eager  intellectual  circle  into 
which,  as  a  mature  woman,  she  entered  in  Lon- 
don. Thackeray  and  Dickens  had  showed  us  the 
life  of  the  average,  the  majority,  —  of  Poverty  and 
Fashion,  equally  unintellectual.  George  Eliot,  a 
few  years  later,  showed  the  life,  the  mood,  the 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  185 

questions,  of  the  small  minority  of  thinking  peo- 
ple. 

Never,  surely,  were  books  more  wistful  than  those 
great  novels,  "Romola,"  " Middlemarch,"  "Daniel 
Deronda."  Their  animus  is  wholly  new:  it  is 
neither  scorn  nor  laughter ;  it  is  sympathy.  This 
sympathy,  more  than  any  other  quality,  gives  to 
the  work  of  George  Eliot  a  depth  of  thoughtf  ulness 
unsounded  by  the  shallow  criticism  on  life  of  her 
predecessors. 

In  social  significance,  "Middlemarch"  is  prob- 
ably the  most  important  novel  of  the  central  Vic- 
torian period.  It  is  certainly  the  most  comprehen- 
sive. The  social  environment  of  the  book,  sketched 
with  remarkable  breadth  and  power,  is  really  a 
summary  of  that  which  we  have  learned  to  know  in 
essay  and  novel.  Here  is  the  gentry,  —  a  country 
gentry,  this  time,  —  Mr.  Brooke  and  the  Chethams, 
with  their  mild  dilettanteism,  their  lack  of  purpose 
or  ideals.  Here  is  the  bourgeois  society  of  the 
town,  divided  from  the  county  by  a  seemingly  im- 
passable gulf :  the  Bulstrodes  and  Vincys,  painfully 
devoid  of  sweetness  and  light.  In  the  intrigue 
centring  around  old  Featherstone,  George  Eliot 
has  tried  her  hand  at  types  that  the  offhand  melo- 
drama of  Dickens  would  have  treated  more  success- 
fully. But  Arnold  himself  never  drew  a  better 
Philistine  than  Bulstrode,  with  his  "  double  Hell, 
of  not  making  money  and  not  saving  his  soul,"  nor 
is  any  one  of  Thackeray's  women  more  selfish, 
bewitching,  and  trivially  clever  than  Rosamund. 
George  Eliot's  studies  of  clergy  are  in  all  her  books 


186       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

a  new  feature,  unparalleled  in  fiction  unless  we  re- 
turn to  the  capital  work  of  Miss  Austen.  "  Middle- 
march"  gives  none  of  her  favorite  and  sympathetic 
pictures  of  dissent ;  but  the  Established  Church  is 
represented  by  admirable  if  rather  depressing  types, 
in  Mr.  Cadwallader,  Mr.  Farebrother,  and  Mr. 
Casaubon.  Certainly,  wherever  the  force  for  social 
salvation  may  reside,  it  is  not  in  these  gentlemen. 

All  these  minor  characters,  whom  Thackeray 
would  have  treated  with  contempt  and  Dickens 
with  jest,  George  Eliot  touches  with  unfailing 
pathos  and  redeems  to  human  dignity ;  yet  her  ob- 
vious intention  is  to  furnish  through  them  a  typical 
social  background.  Against  this  conventional  so- 
ciety, she  places  in  clear,  warm  relief  two  figures : 
Lydgate,  the  representative  of  intellectual  force ; 
Dorothea,  the  representative  of  moral  force.  Both 
rebel  against  convention,  both  in  their  different 
ways  are  routed  by  the  world. 

In  Dorothea,  that  sweet  and  bewildered  person, 
a  new  type  of  heroine  appears  upon  the  stage. 
Dickens'  liking  went  out  to  fragile,  emotional,  and 
kittenish  young  ladies.  In  Louisa  Bounderby  of 
"  Hard  Times,"  we  may  perhaps  catch,  as.  she 
visits  Stephen  Blackpool,  her  husband's  "  hand,"  a 
hint  of  a  wider  compassion ;  but  the  hint  is  of  the 
faintest.  Thackeray,  in  Ethel  Newcome,  showed 
a  restless,  spirited,  brilliant  creature,  ill  at  ease  in 
the  only  life  open  to  her.  But  Dorothea  is  run  in 
another  mould  from  these.  That  curious  sense  of 
the  organic  whole,  that  modern  craving  for  untram- 
meled  fellowship,  for  which  the  term  altruism  is 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  187 

degrading  and  no  other  term  exists,  gathers  in- 
tensely in  her  person,  and  is  the  source  of  the  warm 
glow  that  streams  through  the  dreary  book.  Doro- 
thea is  the  first  example  noted  in  English  fiction  of 
that  new  personal  type  which  suffers  with  atoning 
pain  for  the  sorrows  of  the  world.  Her  life  fails. 
Wholly  unguided,  differing  from  the  modern  woman 
by  her  lack  of  any  adequate  training,  or  indeed  of 
any  training  at  all,  she  finds  no  cause  for  which  to 
live,  and  had  she  found  one,  is  too  solely  a  creature 
of  noble  instincts  to  serve  it  effectively.  Her  mar- 
riage with  Ladislaw  can  hardly  be  held  more  reas- 
suring than  that  with  Casaubon :  for  the  brilliant 
young  Bohemian  —  "a  sort  of  a  Shelley,  you  know," 
says  Mr.  Brooke  —  surely  illustrates  the  frivolity 
of  the  forces  of  revolt,  as  conceived  by  George 
Eliot,  against  the  solid  background  of  English  re- 
spectability, the  Cadwalladers  and  Chethams  and 
Bulstrodes  and  Brookes.  Poor  Dorothea!  Her 
power  has  not  yet  changed  from  impulse  to  purpose. 
She  represents  only  the  second  stage  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  modern  heroine  as  a  social  force.  The 
first  is  shown  in  the  domestic  and  soft-hearted 
ladies  of  Thackeray  and  Dickens ;  the  last,  so  far, 
appears  in  such  characters  as  Besant's  Valentine 
and  Mrs.  Ward's  Marcella,  —  women  strong  to 
achieve  in  their  activities  and  influence  that  large 
cooperation  with  the  forces  making  for  righteous- 
ness which  earlier  heroines  never  imagined  nor 
desired,  and  which  Dorothea  only  dreamed. 

How  George  Eliot  herself  construed  the  signifi- 
cance of  her  Dorothea  is  evident  from  the  Prelude 


188       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

to  "  Middlemarch."  She  reminds  us  in  a  lovely 
passage  of  the  great  life  of  St.  Theresa,  and  con- 
tinues :  "  That  Spanish  woman  who  lived  three 
hundred  years  ago  was  certainly  not  the  last  of  her 
kind.  Many  Theresas  have  been  born  who  found 
for  themselves  no  epic  life  wherein  there  was  a 
constant  unfolding  of  far-resonant  action :  perhaps 
only  a  life  of  mistakes,  the  offspring  of  a  certain 
spiritual  grandeur  ill-matched  with  the  meanness 
of  opportunity ;  perhaps  a  tragic  failure  which 
found  no  sacred  poet,  and  sank  unwept  into  obli- 
vion. With  dim  lights  and  tangled  circumstance, 
they  tried  to  shape  their  thought  and  deed  in  noble 
agreement;  but  after  all,  to  common  eyes  their 
struggle  seemed  mere  inconsistency  and  formless- 
ness :  for  these  later-born  Theresas  were  helped  by 
no  coherent  social  faith  and  order  which  could  per- 
form the  function  of  knowledge  for  the  ardently 
willing  soul." 

"  Middlemarch,"  to  the  author,  was  doubtless  the 
epos  of  failure.  It  expressed  her  impassioned  pro- 
test against  modern  society,  with  its  lack  of  a 
"  coherent  social  faith  and  order,"  its  mammonism 
and  dilettanteism,  its  conventional  class-divisions, 
its  utter  inability  to  present  to  young,  large,  eager 
natures  a  cause  to  live  and  die  for,  an  atmosphere 
in  which  they  could  expand.  But  to  us,  the  book, 
with  all  its  sadness,  is  full  of  hope.  It  marks  the 
turn  of  the  tide  in  modern  fiction ;  for  it  shows 
characters  in  whom  a  new  social  idealism  is  stirring, 
and  their  very  failure  implies  the  promise  of  social 
salvation. 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  189 

Once  again,  George  Eliot  wrote  with  infinite 
pains  a  large  book  of  social  studies.  If  "  Middle- 
march  "  is  the  novel  of  failure,  "  Daniel  Deronda  " 
*  was  meant  to  be  the  novel  of  triumph.  No  char- 
acter in  "  Middlemarch  "  escapes  the  invisible  walls 
of  the  modern  prison :  "  Daniel  Deronda "  opens 
for  its  hero  a  way  to  freedom,  to  achievement,  to 
the  self-surrender  which  is  rapture  and  success. 

We  have  already  seen  how  hard  put  to  it  is  the 
nineteenth  century  when  a  hero  for  its  romances 
is  required.  It  is  of  no  use,  as  even  great  Sir  Wal- 
ter reveals,  to  import  imitations  from  the  past : 
they  may  swagger  and  fight  and  love  and  perform 
unlikely  feats  to  any  extent,  —  they  will  be  only 
ghosts  after  all.  For  the  real  hero  must  not  be 
a  survival  nor  an  accident ;  he  must  be  formed, 
evolved,  created,  by  the  special  conditions  of  his 
own  age.  The  militant  hero  is  an  anomaly  and  an 
absurdity  in  a  novel  that  draws  its  background 
from  a  peaceful  commercial  civilization.  We  want 
a  hero  who  shall  reveal  exalted  possibilities  of  action 
and  devotion  in  the  ordinary  circumstances  that 
surround  the  average  man. 

Now  when  the  writers  of  fiction  had  been  reduced 
to  such  straits  that  the  "  gorilla  type "  of  Jane 
Eyre's  Rochester  became  popular,  things  were 
really  at  a  sad  pass.  Neither  Bulwer  nor  Trollope 
nor  Reade  nor  Wilkie  Collins  evolved  nor  discov- 
ered a  hero.  They  made  some  faint  experiments 
on  bolder  lines  than  those  attempted  by  Dickens  or 
Thackeray,  but  as  a  rule  they  vibrated,  like  their 
betters,  between  the  hysterical  and  the  insipid,  and 


190       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

it  is  impossible  even  to  recall  the  names  of  the 
youug  gentlemen  who  fill  their  leading  r61es.  The 
dearth  of  heroes  by  1870  seemed  hopeless. 

"  Daniel  Deronda "  was  then  a  work  of  great 
audacity.  For  it  was  deliberately  planned  to  pre- 
sent a  new  heroic  type.  Deronda  is  no  reminis- 
cence nor  survival :  he  is  a  hero  who  could  never 
have  existed  till  our  own  day. 

Many  people  have  thought  him  a  failure.  He 
has  been  called  shadowy,  impossible,  —  worse  still, 
priggish.  And  it  is  true  that  Derondas  do  not 
stand  in  wait  for  us  at  every  street-corner,  true  also 
that  the  average  man,  if  he  meets  them  in  real  life, 
as  he  is  more  likely  to  do  now  than  he  was  when 
the  book  was  written,  is  pretty  sure  to  resent  them 
there  as  much  as  he  does  in  fiction.  Yet  Deronda 
is  not  faultless ;  the  modern  mania  of  hesitation, 
which  threatens  at  one  time  to  control  him,  is  no 
trait  of  an  ideal  character.  But  whether  the  draw- 
ing be  executed  well  or  ill,  the  conception  of  the 
character  was  as  original  as  it  was  significant. 
Deronda's  consciousness  sends  out  its  sensitive 
fibres  through  the  whole  human  race,  and  realizes 
the  mighty  organism  from  within.  The  impulse  to 
compassion  and  to  service,  helplessly  astir  in  Doro- 
thea, is  in  him  both  dominant  and  enlightened. 
The  drama  of  the  book  consists  in  its  gradual  vic- 
tory over  every  ordinary  ambition  and  claim.  For 
Deronda  cannot  spend  his  life  in  vague  accidental 
usefulness,  a  sentimental  philanthropist  at  large. 
He  craves  a  duty ;  but  he  has  a  strong  dislike  to 
inventing  one.  He  can  work  freely  and  powerfully 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  191 

only  where  he  belongs.  At  last  a  summons  comes, 
and  from  the  most  unexpected  quarter.  The  re- 
puted son  of  an  English  baronet  discovers  that  he 
is  a  Jew,  and  his  people  claim  him.  Daniel's  deci- 
sion is  not  doubtful.  Fellowship  with  the  British 
aristocracy,  a  career  in  Parliament,  marriage  with 
the  fascinating  Gwendolen,  are  open  to  him ;  from 
these  he  turns  away,  to  ally  himself  with  a  race 
vulgar  and  despised.  We  leave  him  fearing  that 
he  is  embarked  in  a  hopeless  cause,  —  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Jews  to  Palestine,  —  but  confident  that 
he  has  found  the  emancipation  which  brings  life, 
in  the  service  of  an  ideal  such  as  a  commercial  civ- 
ilization sighed  for  in  vain. 

What  drew  George  Eliot  to  the  strange  plot  of 
this  book?  Partly,  no  doubt,  her  Hebrew  sym- 
pathies :  the  appeal  of  the  most  wonderful  racial 
romance  ever  known  by  the  world.  Largely  also 
the  opportunity  offered  by  the  situation  for  study 
of  the  interplay  of  two  great  natural  forces,  hered- 
ity and  environment.  These  mighty  forces,  which 
so  profoundly  impressed  her  imagination,  unite  in 
most  of  her  books  to  determine  duty.  Here  they 
pull  different  ways  ;  the  resultant  struggle  is  in- 
tensely dramatic,  and  heredity,  the  stronger,  con- 
quers. But  it  is  impossible  to  account  for  Deronda 
entirely  on  lines  of  either  romantic  or  scientific 
inspiration.  The  novel  was  George  Eliot's  last, 
and  it  appeared  in  1876.  By  that  time,  social 
unrest  was  fervently  at  work,  though  it  did  not  yet 
fully  understand  its  own  nature.  Karl  Marx  was 
in  London :  only  eight  years  were  to  pass  before 


192       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

"  The  International  "  should  be  formed.  A  new 
conception,  startling  as  that  of  evolution,  was  in 
the  air,  and  demanded  new  readjustments.  It  was 
the  conception  of  social  democracy. 

George  Eliot's  formulae  were  those  of  the  scien- 
tific era  just  closing,  not  those  of  the  democratic 
era  just  at  hand.  But  her  spirit  faced  the  future. 
"  Daniel  Deronda "  reveals  the  sharp  class  cleav- 
age breaking  down  under  the  influence  of  a  great 
impulse,  and  the  passivity  of  life  is  at  an  end.  The 
book  is  tentative,  transitional,  inadequate ;  it  marks 
the  very  beginning  of  a  new  spirit.  Ten  years 
earlier,  Deronda  could  not  have  been  conceived :  he 
is  no  contemporary  of  Pendennis.  Ten  years  later, 
one  may  be  allowed  to  question  whether  he  would 
have  found  his  release  from  conventionality  through 
a  side-issue.  He  discovers  that  he  is  a  Jew,  and 
sacrifices  all  the  world  holds  dear  to  identify  him- 
self with  his  race.  Well  and  good !  Yet  the  He- 
brew is  only  one  detail  in  the  problem  of  the 
modern  democracy.  Had  the  book  been  written  in 
1886,  we  may  easily  imagine  Deronda  finding  his 
cause  in  devotion  to  a  wider  social  freedom,  and 
espousing  the  side  of  the  proletariat.  A  far  weaker 
genius  than  George  Eliot  conceived  not  many  years 
later  a  similar  situation.  The  hero  of  Besant's 
"  Children  of  Gibeon  "  is  placed  exactly  like  De- 
ronda, pulled  one  way  by  the  refined  surroundings 
into  which  he  has  been  adopted,  another  by  the  ties 
of  blood.  But  his  mother  is  a  washerwoman,  and 
it  is  to  the  working-people  that  he  returns.  The 
feeble  democratic  instincts  of  earlier  novelists  found 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  193 

vent,  half-frightened  at  their  own  temerity,  in  pit- 
ting an  artistic  Bohemia,  full  of  culture  and  genius, 
if  a  little  undisciplined  in  manner,  against  the 
forces  of  Respectability  and  Philistia.  A  little  of 
the  same  spirit  lingers  in  "  Daniel  Deronda." 

Yet,  with  whatever  limitations,  it  is  a  noble  book, 
and  its  incidental  suggestion  is  fearlessly  demo- 
cratic. The  greasy  streets,  the  little  back  shop 
of  the  Cohens,  the  kindly,  vulgar  people  whom 
the  fastidious  hero  preferred  to  the  residence  and 
society  of  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger,  are  admirably 
drawn.  They  are  among  the  first  truthful  studies 
of  city  poverty,  and  are  worth  in  their  way  all 
Dickens'  lyrical  or  dramatic  exaggerations.  Best 
of  all,  the  spirit  of  the  hero  of  the  future  is  in  this 
grave  and  ardent  young  patriot,  though  the  form 
which  his  enthusiasm  assumes  be  a  side-issue  in  the 
modern  struggle. 

George  Eliot's  works  mark  the  climax  of  the 
social  feeling  in  fiction  previous  to  1880.  They 
show  the  social  conscience  fairly  awake,  and  await- 
ing its  summons.  Other  modern  novels,  during  the 
same  period,  reflected  clearly  enough  the  growing 
spirit.  To  discuss  the  work  of  living  authors  lies 
without  our  scope,  but  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  sig- 
naling the  notable  names  of  Meredith  and  Hardy. 
Each  is,  like  Browning,  a  distinct  individualist  in 
thought  and  artistic  method ;  yet  both  manifest  the 
new  spirit  by  the  marvelous  keenness  with  which 
their  chosen  social  types  are  made  to  live  before 
us  in  their  relations  to  the  larger  life  of  the  race. 


194       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

If  the  student  of  the  future  wishes  to  understand 
the  very  innermost  springs  of  conduct  and  passion 
in  the  British  aristocracy  as  watched,  not  by  the 
satirist,  but  by  the  psychologist,  he  will  do  well 
to  turn  rather  to  "  Beauchamp's  Career "  than  to 
"  Vanity  Fair."  If,  in  the  approaching  day  when 
society  shall  have  become  mobilized  in  every  par- 
ticle, he  is  curious  to  learn  the  characteristics  of 
a  population  rooted  for  centuries  to  the  soil,  he 
will  find  his  richest  material  in  "Far  from  the 
Madding  Crowd,"  "  The  Woodlanders,"  and  "  Tess 
of  the  D'Urbervilles."  Meredith  and  Hardy  prac- 
tice realism  at  the  two  poles  of  sophistication  and 
simplicity.  No  words  can  do  more  than  justice  to 
Meredith's  splendid  power  to  catch  the  flying  detail 
of  thought  and  feeling  in  the  highly  allusive  and 
subtle  life  of  the  upper  classes ;  or  to  Hardy's 
magnificent  comprehension  of  the  silent  forces  of 
custom  and  passion  in  the  lives  of  the  unlettered 
poor.  Meredith  would  be  a  great  social  novelist,  in 
even  the  narrowest  sense,  had  he  given  us  nothing 
but  the  story  of  Nevil  Beauchamp,  with  its  bril- 
liantly contrasted  types  of  the  "twelfth  century 
baron  "  and  the  radical  old  Carlylesque  doctor,  and 
its  Shelley-like  young  hero,  living  out  between  them 
the  exasperating  pathos  of  his  "  career."  Many 
side-suggestions  in  "  Tess "  and  "  Jude  the  Ob- 
scure "  show  that  the  mind  of  Hardy  is  brooding 
intently  on  modern  conditions  wider  than  those  he 
chooses  for  central  theme.  At  the  same  time,  tak- 
ing the  work  of  these  authors  in  its  entirety,  we 
cannot  fairly  claim  that  its  main  inspiration  is  in 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  195 

the  modern  social  spirit.  Both  are  preoccupied, 
in  an  age  full  of  anomalies,  not  with  problems  of 
race  or  class,  but  with  those  of  the  private  life. 
Both  decline  in  their  later  books  —  if  so  strong  a 
development  may  be  called  a  decline  —  toward  the 
distinct  tendency-novel;  constituting  themselves  in 
different  ways  the  champions  of  women,  they  lose 
sight  of  the  larger  issues  which  include  the  less, 
and  which  in  their  very  sweep  and  breadth  offer  a 
certain  protection  to  the  man  of  genius  against 
offensive  and  inartistic  dogmatism. 

But  we  must  return  to  the  province  where  we 
belong :  that  of  writers  no  longer  living.  Despite 
the  vast  number  of  novels  which  have  no  social 
animus  whatever,  the  student  of  social  ethics  and 
conditions  can  gather  from  early  Victorian  fiction 
a  surprising  array  of  suggestive  books.  The  politi- 
cal novel,  through  the  bombast  of  Lytton,  and  the 
extraordinary  farrago  of  nonsense,  shot  with  flashes 
of  keen  perception,  in  Disraeli's  "Coningsby"  and 
"  Sybil,"  carried  the  half-contemptuous  understand- 
ing that  liberalism  as  "  laissez  faire  "  was  dying, 
and  that  new  lines  of  division  based  on  social  con- 
siderations were  imminent.  In  Charles  Reade,  the 
purely  literary  instinct  of  the  craftsman  seized  on 
the  material  offered  by  industrial  conditions,  and 
used  them  in  vivid  if  somewhat  mechanical  fashion. 
The  ethical  novel  of  social  revolt  had  more  impor- 
tance. The  studies  of  factory  life  and  of  the  posi- 
tion of  workmen  and  employers  in  the  stories  of 
Mrs.  Gaskell  and  in  Charlotte  Bronte's  "  Shirley  " 
were  noteworthy  for  their  fair-mindedness  and  true 


196       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

feeling,  and  are  old-fashioned  to-day  in  art,  perhaps, 
but  not  in  theme.  The  quiet  and  beautiful  early 
work  of  Macdonald,  especially  "  Kobert  Falconer," 
reminds  us  of  the  debt  which  the  cause  of  the  Peo- 
ple has  owed  to  Scottish  literature  from  the  days 
of  Burns  to  those  of  Barrie  and  Maclaren :  for 
it  upheld,  out  of  the  simplicity  of  Scottish  life, 
the  spiritual  idea  of  freedom  and  social  service. 
But  perhaps  the  most  agitated  expression  of  so- 
cial unrest  which  the  fiction  of  the  times  fur- 
nishes is  found  in  the  "Yeast"  and  "Alton  Locke  " 
of  Charles  Kingsley.  The  last  of  these  books  it  is 
still  impossible  to  read  without  excitement.  It  be- 
longs to  the  distant  days  of  1848,  when  the  Chart- 
ist movement  had  for  the  first  time  brought  men 
of  culture  and  Christianity  into  direct  contact  with 
the  industrial  problem  and  with  real  workingmen. 
Its  grim  picture  of  the  sweating-system  and  its  in- 
dignant eloquence  are  living  yet ;  its  demonstration 
of  the  utter  helplessness  of  the  untrained  working- 
men,  victims  of  a  wistful,  well-meaning,  but  wholly 
inadequate  gentry,  has  lost  little  of  its  ironical 
force.  But  a  visionary  element  and  a  scant  know- 
ledge of  the  working-class  it  meant  to  represent 
vitiate  the  book.  When,  at  the  end,  Kingsley,  as 
in  duty  bound,  turns  to  suggest  solution  and  salva- 
tion, he  slips  into  an  apocalyptic  strain.  Through 
his  sentimentality,  the  only  definite  thought  to 
emerge  is  that  the  key  to  all  social  troubles  is  to 
be  found  in  Christianity.  But  how?  This  vast 
and  intricate  question,  the  most  pressing  that  con- 
fronts the  modern  Church,  he  does  not  even  face. 


THE  SOCIAL   CONSCIENCE  197 

So  far  as  artistic  excellence  goes,  the  book  would 
have  been  better  if  less  ardently  conceived.  Re- 
former and  artist  coexisted  in  Kingsley,  each  so 
vigorous  as  never  to  allow  to  the  other  full  develop- 
ment. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  fiction  from  1840  to  1880 
testified  to  the  quickening  of  interest  in  social 
types ;  to  the  gradual  awakening  of  social  unrest ; 
to  a  vague  and  helpless  quest  of  a  wider  freedom, 
an  instinct  new  and  as  yet  baffled,  hopeful  only 
because  of  its  own  intensity.  Society  was  still  be- 
tween sleep  and  waking ;  but  its  sleep  was  troubled 
with  dreams,  and  the  dreams  of  dawn  are  prophetic. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A   GLIMPSE   OF  AMERICA 

ON  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  from  1840  to 
1880,  a  social  literature  far  more  cheerful  and 
assured  was  in  progress.  Here  the  democratic 
ideal,  never  yet  frankly  accepted  in  the  European 
nations,  was  the  native  intuition  of  every  growing 
youth.  Its  difficulties  were  not  yet  unfolded ;  it 
was  seen  actually  at  work,  imparting  to  our  young 
civilization  an  elasticity  such  as  Christendom  had 
never  experienced ;  a  visible  symbol  of  its  seemingly 
inexhaustible  promise  was  outspread  in  the  wide 
lands  of  the  West.  The  writings  of  Lowell,  of 
Whittier,  of  Thoreau,  of  Emerson,  of  Whitman, 
are  alight  with  hope  and  aglow  with  optimism. 
"  The  American  Scholar,"  "  The  Biglow  Papers," 
"  The  Song  of  the  Open  Road,"  are  the  eager  lyri- 
cal expressions  of  a  democracy  only  just  conscious 
enough  of  obstacle  to  gain  the  splendid  thrill  of 
combat.  A  feeling  of  power,  expectant,  exultant, 
leapt  through  the  new  nation.  No  weight  of  cus- 
tom bowed  its  children  down  :  it  was  aware  that  it 
was  established  on  foundations  unknown  in  the  old 
world ;  the  earth  was  its  own,  and  it  waited,  ardent, 
for  the  sons  of  the  future. 

"Perhaps   the    time    has    already   come,"   said 


A   GLIMPSE   OF  AMERICA  199 

Emerson  in  his  ringing  address  on  "  The  Ameri- 
can Scholar,"  "  when  the  sluggard  intellect  of  this 
continent  will  look  from  under  its  iron  lids,  and  fill 
the  postponed  expectation  of  the  world  with  some- 
thing better  than  the  exertions  of  mechanical  skill. 
Our  day  of  dependence,  our  long  apprenticeship  to 
the  learning  of  other  lands,  draws  to  a  close.  The 
millions  that  around  us  are  rushing  into  life  can- 
not always  be  fed  on  the  sere  remains  of  foreign 
harvests.  ...  I  ask  not  for  the  great,  the  remote, 
the  romantic ;  what  is  doing  in  Italy  or  Arabia ; 
what  is  Greek  art  or  Provencal  minstrelsy ;  I  em- 
brace the  common,  I  explore  and  sit  at  the  feet  of 
the  familiar,  the  low." 

"Democracy!  near  at  hand  to  you  a  throat  is 
now  inflating  itself  and  joyfully  singing."  This 
Address,  with  its  great  proclamation  of  an  ideal 
and  spiritual  freedom,  strikes  the  keynote  of  feel- 
ing in  the  young  nation.  Echoes,  conscious  or  un- 
conscious, came  to  it  from  all  sides,  till  they  passed 
into  laughter-compelling  bravado  in  the  extraordi- 
nary yet  clarion  songs  of  Whitman :  — 

"  Come  Muse,  migrate  from  Greece  and  Ionia, 
Cross  out,  please,  those  immensely  overpaid  accounts, 
That  matter  of  Troy,  of  Achilles'  wrath,  and  ^Eneas',  Odysseus' 

wanderings, 
Placard  '  Removed  '  and  '  To  Let '  on  the  rocks  of  your  snowy 

Parnassus, 

For  know,  a  better,  fresher,  busier  sphere,  a  wide  untried  domain, 
awaits,  demands  you."  1 

The  whole  body  of  our  early  American  literature, 

1  Song  of  the  Exposition. 


200       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

despite  a  tentative  and  imitative  quality  which 
clings  to  much  of  it,  assuredly  suggests  a  society 
which  has  sloughed  off  an  enormous  weight  of  con- 
ventions, and  has  escaped  from  stratified  rigidity 
into  a  reverent  joy  in  the  free  movement  of  its 
every  particle.  Cooper  beside  Scott,  choosing  the 
pathless  forest  and  the  lithe  pioneer  rather  than 
the  mediaeval  court  and  tourney  as  material  for 
romance ;  Whittier  beside  Burns,  exhaling  with 
calm  and  artless  simplicity  convictions  which  the 
peasant-poet  of  the  Old  World  shouted  with  passion- 
ate defiance ;  Lowell  beside  Arnold,  and,  we  might 
disregard  chronology  to  add,  Howells  beside  Dick- 
ens, —  all  these  comparisons  suggest  a  distinct 
American  spirit,  new-born  in  the  New  World. 

In  the  amplitude,  yet  seemingly  unbounded,  of 
the  new  continent,  social  conditions  were  still  ex- 
tremely simple.  "  Plain  living  and  high  thinking," 
such  as  Clough  delightedly  describes  in  his  Ameri- 
can letters,  were  the  general  instinct  and  practice. 
"A  man  is  rich  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
things  which  he  can  afford  to  let  alone,"  said 
Thoreau.  Perhaps  the  simplicity  of  life  gained 
peculiar  charm  from  a  wistful  prescience  that  it 
was  passing  away,  and  men  like  the  Transcenden- 
talists  clung  with  resolute  tenacity  to  their  natural 
heritage.  Society,  at  least  hi  New  England,  had 
become  sufficiently  self-conscious  to  rejoice  in  its 
own  freedom  from  sophistication.  It  shared  the 
intellectual  riches  of  Europe  ;  it  inherited  the  primi- 
tive practical  conditions  of  the  pioneer.  Seldom 
indeed  is  such  a  union  seen,  and  the  Transcendental 


A   GLIMPSE  OF  AMERICA  201 

movement  witnessed  to  the  resultant  purity  and 
vigor  of  the  young  civilization.  Social  idealism 
flourished  in  its  atmosphere.  Experiments  like 
Brook  Farm,  whereof  the  Articles  are  still  good 
to  read,  sprang  up  with  naif  and  winning  auda- 
city. Men  of  letters,  as  Hawthorne's  whimsical 
Journal  will  show,  for  a  time  took  honestly  and 
energetically  to  manual  labor ;  and  though  with 
some  of  them  the  reaction  was  not  long  in  coming, 
for  a  little  while  the  way  really  seemed  open  to  the 
actual  establishment  on  this  workaday  earth  of  the 
new  "  City  of  Friends." 

James  Russell  Lowell  gives  a  delightful  picture 
of  the  conditions  that  prevailed  through  those 
fortunate  years  in  one  of  the  strong  addresses  of 
his  later  life,  "  The  Independent  in  Politics," 
delivered  before  the  Reform  Club  of  New  York 
in  1888:  — 

"  Till  within  a  few  years  of  our  Civil  War,  every- 
thing conduced  to  our  measuring  the  success  of 
our  institutions  by  the  evidence  of  our  outward 
prosperity,  and  to  our  seeing  the  future  in  rose- 
color.  The  hues  of  our  dawn  had  scarcely  faded 
from  the  sky. 

"Many,  perhaps  most,  of  the  refugees  who, 
during  or  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  went  to 
England,  or  home,  as  they  fondly  called  it,  found 
themselves  out  of  place  and  unhappy  there.  The 
home  they  missed  was  that  humane  equality,  not  of 
condition  or  station,  but  of  being  and  opportunity, 
which  by  some  benign  influence  of  the  place  had 


202        THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

overcome  them  here,  like  a  summer  cloud,  without 
their  special  wonder.  Yet  they  felt  the  comfort  of 
it  as  of  an  air  wholesome  to  breathe.  I  more  than 
suspect  that  it  was  the  absence  of  this  inestimable 
property  of  the  moral  atmosphere  that  made  them 
aliens  in  every  other  land,  and  convinced  them  that 
an  American  can  no  more  find  another  country  than 
a  second  mother.  This  equality  had  not  then  been 
proclaimed  as  a  right ;  it  had  been  incorporated  in 
no  constitution,  but  was  there  by  the  necessity  of 
the  case  —  a  gift  of  the  sky  and  of  the  forest.  .  .  . 

"  This  was  the  American  novelty,  no  bantling 
of  theory,  no  fruit  of  forethought,  no  trophy  of 
insurgent  violence,  but  a  pure  evolution  from  the 
nature  of  man  in  a  perfectly  free  medium.  The 
essential  triumph  was  achieved  in  this  tacit  recog- 
nition of  a  certain  privilege  and  adequacy  in  mere 
manhood,  and  democracy  may  be  said  to  have  suc- 
ceeded before  it  was  accepted  as  doctrine  or  em- 
bodied as  a  political  fact.  Our  ancestors  sought  a 
new  country.  What  they  found  was  a  new  condi- 
tion of  mind." 

In  this  "  humane  equality  of  being  and  opportu- 
nity," each  several  person  seemed  to  stand  out  with 
a  new  light  upon  him.  A  serene  individualism 
pervades  all  the  utterances  of  what  we  may  call  our 
first  American  mood.  "  Another  sign  of  our  times," 
says  Emerson  in  the  conclusion  of  the  essay  already 
quoted,  "  is  the  new  importance  given  to  the  single 
person.  ...  Is  it  not  the  chief  disgrace  in  the 
world,  not  to  be  an  unit ;  —  not  to  be  reckoned  one 
character ;  —  not  to  yield  that  peculiar  fruit  which 


A   GLIMPSE  OF  AMERICA  203 

each  man  was  created  to  bear,  but  to  be  reckoned 
in  the  gross,  in  the  hundred,  or  the  thousand,  of 
the  party,  the  section,  to  which  we  belong ;  and  our 
opinion  predicted  geographically,  as  the  north,  or 
the  south  ?  Not  so,  brothers  and  friends,  —  please 
God,  ours  shall  not  be  so.  We  will  walk  on  our 
own  feet ;  we  will  work  with  our  own  hands ;  we 
will  speak  our  own  minds.  ...  A  nation  of  men 
will  for  the  first  time  exist,  because  each  believes 
himself  inspired  by  the  Divine  Soul  which  also 
inspires  all  men." 

"  I  swear  I  begin  to  see  the  meaning  of  these  things, 
It  is  not  the  earth,  it  is  not  America  who  is  so  great, 
It  is  I  who  am  great  or  to  be  great,  it  is  You  up  there,  or  any  one, 
It  is  to  walk  rapidly  through  civilizations,  governments,  theories, 
Through  poems,  pageants,  shows,  to  form  individuals."  x 

It  is  inevitable  that  the  strong  feeling  of  power 
imparted  by  the  democratic  ideal  should  thrill 
first  through  the  individual  brain  and  heart  and 
arm :  individualism  is  the  first  logical  free  expres- 
sion of  the  spirit  of  democracy.  The  fine  phrase 
of  Napoleon,  "La  carriere  ouverte  aux  talents," 
seemed  to  Lowell,  as  it  still  seems  to  many  people, 
the  last  word  of  civilization.  It  is  our  glory  that 
we  have  placed  a  spiritual  as  well  as  a  material 
construction  upon  the  phrase.  Nor  is  this  mysti- 
cally exalted  idea  of  the  individual  by  any  means 
consciously  opposed  to  the  idea  of  the  social  whole. 
Kevolutionary  idealism,  from  the  days  of  Kousseau 
down,  not  only  held  the  two  thoughts  in  solution, 
but  believed  that  each  implied  the  other ;  that  as 

1  Whitman,  By  Blue  Ontario's  Shore. 


204       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

the  welfare  of  the  one  man  was  shadow  except  as  it 
could  be  shared  by  the  many,  so  the  many  could 
never  gain  it  until  it  was  possessed  by  the  one. 
Pushed  to  an  extreme  in  a  crowded  land,  however, 
this  principle  does  not  always  lead  to  the  advantage 
of  the  majority ;  and  the  honest  individualist  often 
confessed  from  the  first  that  the  strong  man  must 
rise  to  success  over  the  bodies  of  his  fellows,  or  at 
least  that  social  laws  have  scant  responsibility 
toward  the  weak.  "  Ungracious  as  it  may  sound," 
says  Whitman  in  "  Democratic  Vistas,"  "  Demo- 
cracy looks  with  suspicious,  ill-satisfied  eye  upon 
the  very  poor,  the  ignorant,  and  on  those  out  of 
business.  .  .  .  She  asks  for  men  and  women  with 
occupations,  well-off,  owners  of  houses  and  acres 
and  with  cash  in  the  bank."  But  during  the  first 
golden  years  of  the  republic,  this  so  frank  avowal 
was  neither  made,  thought  of,  nor  needed.  The 
country  was  yet  wide  and  unpeopled ;  each  man 
might  announce  and  achieve  his  intention  of  ex- 
tending to  his  full  stature,  with  no  fear  of  jostling 
his  neighbor. 

The  American  idea  of  freedom  was  not  station- 
ary. Nobly  dramatic  phases  marked  its  evolution. 
New  England  had  been  colonized  by  men  who 
counted  civilization  well  lost  for  spiritual  liberty ; 
and  the  tradition  of  their  severe  unworldliness 
remained  long,  as  it  should  remain  to-day,  a  vital  in- 
spiration. The  revolutionary  struggle  had  formed 
the  image  of  the  Nation,  and  added  to  the  religious 
conception  of  freedom  a  political  idea  definite  and 


A   GLIMPSE  OF  AMERICA  205 

highly  intellectualized.  The  religious  and  the  po- 
litical idea  had  alike  carried  with  them  a  corollary 
clearly  assumed  though  not  stated.  If  the  founders 
of  the  nation  did  not  grasp  in  its  entirety  the 
modern  thought  of  social  democracy,  —  as  indeed 
no  man  at  their  time  could  grasp  it,  —  they  at  least 
expected  that  America  should  have  no  privileged 
class  with  a  monopoly  of  luxuries,  and  that  fair 
opportunity  to  enter  the  struggle  of  life  on  equal 
terms  should  be  open  to  all  citizens.  A  plutocracy 
was  assuredly  the  last  result  of  their  hopes  contem-  ' 
plated  either  by  our  Puritan  forefathers,  or  by  the 
great  statesmen  of  the  Revolution. 

To  all  the  splendid  conditions  of  our  early  years 
—  a  fine  tradition  of  unworldliness,  a  simple  social 
life  free  from  material  preoccupations,  personal 
types  singularly  pure  and  high  —  came  the  last 
and  chief  aid  to  idealism,  a  noble  cause  to  fight 
for.  The  anti-slavery  conflict,  in  that  long  history 
of  which  the  Civil  War  is  the  climax,  was  the  third 
great  episode  in  the  national  struggle  for  freedom. 
It  confronted  men  with  a  clear-cut  issue.  A  dark 
subject  race,  avowedly  deprived  of  even  the  simula- 
crum of  liberty,  stood  visibly  mocking  in  its  bond- 
age the  ideal  of  the  founders  of  the  nation.  To 
destroy  slavery,  and  at  the  same  time  to  assert  and 
finally  establish  that  national  unity  which  had 
been  somewhat  hastily  assumed,  was  the  obvious 
task  of  the  America  of  1860.  With  such  a  cause 
to  summon,  with  almost  complete  blindness  to  the 
complexity  of  the  growing  national  life,  with  faith 
undimmed  by  disillusion  and  upheld  by  purest 


206       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

religious  fervor,  fortunate  indeed  were  the  men  of 
the  North  in  that  generation.  They  saw 

"  Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  forever  on  the  throne." 

No  perception  of  a  less  simple  antithesis  bewildered 
them ;  and,  confident  that  "  that  scaffold  ruled  the 
Future,"  they  marched  bravely  up  its  steps  with  a 
song  upon  their  lips.  For  Truth  demanded  mar- 
tyrs :  real  soldier-martyrs,  inspired  by  simple,  obvi- 
ous, glorious  heroism,  by  that  readiness  to  lay  down 
the  life  of  the  body  which  forever  makes  the  blood 
leap  and  renews  the  youth  of  the  spirit  of  man. 
During  the  slow  gathering  and  great  outburst  of 
the  anti-slavery  struggle,  one  feels  pulsing  through 
all  the  written  words  of  our  idealists  the  exultant 
sense  of  hope  and  power,  the  conviction  that  mighty 
and  terrible  though  the  task  may  be,  intrusted  by 
Freedom  to  America,  the  young  nation  shall  prove 
itself  worthy  even  unto  death.  Nor  was  their  faith 
disappointed.  It  was  the  "  plain  people  "  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  who  fought  the  Civil  War. 

This  ringing  note  of  American  optimism  was 
slow  to  die  from  our  literature.  It  echoes  many 
years  later  in  Lowell's  fine  essay  on  "  Democracy," 
and  its  high  conviction,  its  beautiful  confidence  in 
Freedom,  its  assurance  of  victory,  sound  courage  to 
our  more  uncertain  age.  Well  may  we  be  thankful 
for  that  early  struggle  against  obvious  slavery: 
we,  children  of  a  new  world  already  old,  immersed 
in  questions  agonizing  from  their  confusion,  facing 
the  most  intricate  problems  of  race  and  class,  with 
no  means  to  solve  them  except  an  idea  pitilessly 
and  sublimely  simple. 


A   GLIMPSE  OF  AMERICA  207 

For  the  social  situation  developed  as  the  anti- 
slavery  conflict  receded.  Peace  was  not  yet  to  be 
the  inheritance  of  a  land  protagonist  among  the 
nations  in  the  frank  assertion  of  a  new  ideal.  To 
achieve  Democracy  was  no  light  task  that  a  hundred 
years  and  two  great  wars  could  finish.  New  diffi- 
culties unfolded :  the  struggle  for  freedom  was 
seen  to  involve  wider  and  more  complex  issues  than 
our  first  Americans  had  dreamed. 

We  started  with  implicit  trust  in  American 
institutions  and  the  American  spirit;  we  trust 
them  still.  Yet  we  see  that  if  a  great  work  lies 
behind  us,  a  greater  lies  before.  Much  of  that  •* 
prosperity  and  fine  simplicity  in  social  conditions 
which  we  liked  to  ascribe  to  our  voluntary  shaping 
of  an  ideal  for  our  national  life,  time  is  revealing  . 
as  an  accident  of  primitive  development  and  of  / 
ample  space.  Nor  should  we  be  surprised.  Our 
political  institutions  are  our  own,  our  social  ideal  is 
our  own :  but  what  is  there  distinctively  American 
in  our  industrial  institutions  as  such?  As  the 
accidents  of  a  new  country  vanish,  these  conditions 
become  more  and  more  assimilated  to  those  of 
Europe.  To.  find  industrial  workers  living  under 
idyllic  and  rational  circumstances  such  as  those 
described  by  Lucy  Larcom  in  her  charming  account 
of  "  A  New  England  Girlhood,"  it  is  necessary  to 
move  farther  and  ever  farther  west,  if  we  would  — 
to  borrow  Matthew  Arnold's  figure  —  "  outrun  the 
constable."  Even  from  the  wide  regions  of  the 
West  rises  a  voice  of  complaint  and  distress.  Dis- 
raeli's "  two  nations  "  are  among  us,  though  passage 


208       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

from  side  to  side  is  easier  than  in  Europe,  and  the 
nations  change  with  each  generation,  instead  of 
remaining  constant  from  father  to  son.  The  sig- 
nificant absence,  which  long  prevailed,  of  a  litera- 
ture of  protest  in  America  corresponding  to  that  of 
Europe  is  now  invaded  by  sharp  notes  of  pain :  — 

"  Yea,  what  avail  the  endless  tale 
Of  gain  by  cunning  and  plus  by  sale  ? 
Look  np  the  land,  look  down  the  land, 
The  poor,  the  poor,  the  poor,  they  stand 
Wedged  by  the  pressing  of  Trade's  hand 
Against  an  inward-opening  door, 
That  pressure  tightens  evermore. 
They  sigh  a  monstrous,  foul-air  sigh 
For  the  outside  leagues  of  liberty, 
Where  Art,  sweet  lark,  translates  the  sky 
Into  a  heavenly  melody. 
'  Each  day,  all  day  (these  poor  folks  say), 
In  the  same  old  year-long,  drear-long  way, 
We  weave  in  the  mills  and  heave  in  the  kilns, 
We  sieve  mine-meshes  under  the  hills, 
And  thieve  much  gold  from  the  devil's  bank-tills, 
To  relieve,  0  God,  what  manner  of  ills  ? 
But  who  said  once  in  the  lordly  tone, 
Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone, 
But  by  all  that  comethfrom  the  Throne  ? 

Hath  God  said  so  ? 

But  Trade  saith  No, 

And  the  kilns  and  the  curt-tongued  mills  say, '  Go : 
There's  plenty  that  can  if  you  can't,  we  know; 
Move  out,  if  you  think  you  're  underpaid. 
The  poor  are  prolific ;  we  're  not  afraid  : 

Trade  is  trade.' " 1 

Hurtling  claims  confront  us  on  every  hand. 
The  political  aspect  of  democracy  is  developing 
problems  of  its  own.  The  care  of  weakling  na- 
tions at  our  doors  bids  fair  to  be  thrust  upon 

1  Sidney  Lanier,  The  Symphony. 


A   GLIMPSE  OF  AMERICA  209 

us  whether  we  will  or  no,  and  even  before  we 
have  reached  full  self-realization  we  are  drawn 
almost  against  our  will  into  the  politics  of  the 
world.  Meanwhile,  we  are  bewildered,  almost 
overwhelmed,  by  the  outpouring  of  Europe  on  our 
coasts.  It  would  seem  that  no  nation,  even  if 
separated  from  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world  by 
wide  ocean-reaches,  could  be  allowed  to  carry  on 
the  struggle  for  freedom,  or  to  win  her  gifts, 
alone.  America  had  from  the  first  proudly  claimed 
the  noble  title  she  bears  in  Emma  Lazarus'  sonnet 
on  the  Bartholdi  Statue  of  Liberty  :  — 

"  Not  like  the  brazen  giant  of  Greek  fame, 
With  conquering1  limbs  astride  from  land  to  land ; 
Here  at  our  sea-washed,  sunset  gates  shall  stand 
A  mighty  woman  with  a  torch,  whose  flame 
Is  the  imprisoned  lightning,  and  her  name, 
'  Mother  of  Exiles.'     From  her  beacon-hand 
Glows  world-wide  welcome.    Her  mild  eyes  command 
The  air-bridged  harbor  that  twin  cities  frame. 
'  Keep,  ancient  lands,  your  storied  pomp  !  '  cries  she 
With  silent  lips.     '  Give  me  your  tired,  your  poor, 
Your  huddled  masses  yearning  to  breathe  free, 
The  wretched  refuse  of  your  teeming  store. 
Send  these,  the  homeless,  tempest-tossed,  to  me ; 
I  lift  my  lamp  beside  the  golden  door  !  ' ' 

Only  too  readily  the  countries  of  Europe  heard 
this  invitation  and  obeyed  it ;  and  not  all  our 
wealth  of  territory  and  resource  were  adequate  to 
meet  the  demands  made  on  us  by  the  throngs  of 
helpless  strangers  yearly  landed  from  the  Old 
World.  The  crowds  have  increased,  the  industrial 
conditions  of  England  have  repeated  themselves ; 
and  our  sturdy  individualism  itself,  with  even  less 
protest  than  that  heard  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  has  sanctioned  the  free  play  of  competi- 


210       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

tive  forces.  With  the  American  Constitution  for 
an  ideal,  and  for  material  wherefrom  to  realize  it, 
Poles,  Russians,  Jews,  Italians,  Germans,  Hunga- 
rians, Bohemians,  Armenians,  Irish ;  with  an  indus- 
trial situation  rapidly  becoming  the  same  as  that 
of  Europe ;  with  a  political  democracy  in  which  it 
is  at  present  not  wholly  easy  to  exult,  America 
has  fallen  into  line  with  the  other  nations,  and 
must  bear  with  them,  but  under  conditions  more 
complicated,  the  onus  of  the  modern  struggle. 

That  she  will  bear  it,  that  she  may  lead  it  if 
she  will,  who,  loving  her,  can  doubt  ?  If  the  work 
awaiting  us  is  greater  than  the  work  achieved,  we 
have  great  strength  with  which  to  meet  it.  If  our 
conditions  are  in  some  respects  even  more  com- 
plex than  those  of  Europe,  we  have  an  immense 
advantage  over  her  in  the  different  foundations  on 
which  our  national  life  is  laid ;  in  our  assumption 
of  social  equality,  and  in  the  absence  among  us 
of  solidified  class  feeling,  such  as  removes  all  pos- 
sibility of  unconsciousness  from  social  advance  in 
the  Old  World.  Ours  not  to  create  a  tradition  of 
freedom ;  ours  only  to  maintain  and  apply  a  tra- 
dition, the  chief  glory  of  our  inheritance.  The 
Spirit  of  the  American  people  —  an  invisible  Pre- 
sence such  as  Cardinal  Newman  loved  to  picture 
presiding  over  the  destiny  of  nations  —  bends  over 
us  and  beckons  us  on. 

To  realize  a  spiritual  democracy  for  the  victims 
and  outcasts  of  the  Old  World  is  a  task  before 
which  we  may  indeed  quail,  unless  we  believe  it 
to  be  God-given.  But,  turning  back  to  the  lives 
of  our  fathers,  surely  we  see  in  the  warfare  against 


A   GLIMPSE  OF  AMERICA  211 

the  slavery  of  the  negro  a  prophecy  of  our  larger 
conflict  against  evil  less  evident,  but  more  deeply 
imbedded  in  the  social  body.  The  Civil  War  lies 
behind  us  as  a  great  symbol,  and  its  limited  and 
clear-cut  struggle  may  well  inspire  our  genera- 
tion as  we  face  the  more  confused  and  widespread 
forces  of  industrial  bondage  that  hold  our  laboring- 
classes  in  a  spiritual  deprivation  as  complete  in 
some  ways  as  that  of  the  slave.  Indeed,  the  same 
relation  binds  our  present  to  all  the  episodes  of 
our  great  history,  even  to  that  most  recent  epi- 
sode which  lies  too  close  behind  us  for  discussion. 
Noble  and  of  vast  import  they  have  been  ;  yet  we 
begin  to  question  whether  they  were  not  all  alike 
the  preludes  to  a  vaster  conflict  for  which  the 
forces  are  slowly  gathering:  the  conflict  against 
industrial  slavery,  the  class-war  that  threatens 
the  civilized  world.  We  need  all  the  courage  the 
past  can  give  us;  we  need  all  the  consecration  it 
can  inspire.  Well  is  it  for  us  if  the  idealism  of 
our  first  poets  of  freedom  can  still  tingle  on  our 
lips,  and  the  assurance  of  their  faith  cheer  us. 
Well  also  if  those  soldier-martyrs  who  visibly  laid 
down  their  lives  for  freedom  can  beckon  and  nerve 
those  modern  martyrs  of  the  spirit,  whom  no  physi- 
cal excitement  helps  to  sustain  through  that  long 
agony  in  which  their  hearts  hold  up  to  God  the 
victims  of  the  modern  slavery  of  trade.  If  our 
earlier  struggles  have  bequeathed  to  us  purpose, 
strength,  and  hope  for  that  impending  test  of  our 
idealism,  then  the  splendid  cheer,  the  tenacity  and 
simplicity  of  faith,  in  our  early  American  literature 
need  not  be  lost. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHAT   TO   DO:    ACCORDING   TO    CARLYLE 

REFRESHING  battle  against  obvious  wrong  was 
not  for  England.  There  already,  when  our  Civil 
War  broke  out,  the  less  evident  if  more  terrible 
form  of  slavery  prevailed.  Over-population,  un- 
employment, starvation  wages,  were  its  symptoms ; 
in  strikes  and  riots  it  was  finding  tongue. 

The  modern  situation  was  too  complex  to  be 
readily  discerned ;  during  the  half-century  before 
1880,  it  was  invading  the  imagination  indeed,  but 
silently,  slowly.  Nor  could  it  when  discerned 
satisfy,  though  it  could  arouse,  the  ardent  instinct 
for  battle.  For  against  what  foes  could  the  love 
of  man  and  freedom  hurl  its  weapons  ?  The  com- 
petitive system,  dimly  felt  by  some  people  to  be 
at  the  basis  of  the  evil,  was  as  irresponsible  as  it 
was  mighty.  From  one  point  of  view,  moreover, 
it  was  the  very  safeguard  of  personal  liberty. 
Laissez  Faire,  in  economic  phenomena,  corre- 
sponded accurately,  if  rather  grimly,  to  Emerson's 
poetic  theories  of  the  right  of  every  man  to  shape 
the  universe  according  to  his  powers.  Unrestricted 
competition  seemed  not  only  sternly  just,  accord- 
ing to  the  ideas  current,  but  inevitable  as  a  law 
of  nature.  Society,  possessed  by  fresh  and  often 


WHAT  TO  DO:    CARLYLE  213 

crude  perception  of  evolutionary  principles,  felt 
helpless  before  it ;  for  it  did  but  carry  out  imper- 
sonally, inexorably,  the  struggle  for  existence  and 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Even  to-day,  many 
people  feel  that  it  is  either  sentimental,  criminal, 
or  at  best  hopeless,  to  seek  to  disturb  by  conscious 
effort  the  action  of  so-called  natural  law  in  civili- 
zation. 

And  yet,  while  evolutionary  thought  thus  brought 
with  it  a  tendency  to  social  fatalism,  it  brought 
also  a  quickened  sense  of  social  responsibility. 
Moreover,  the  imperative  instinct  of  compassion, 
the  intolerance  for  suffering  engendered  in  a  peace- 
ful age,  were  on  the  increase  ;  and  the  social  con- 
science was  becoming,  in  noble  souls,  quick  as  a 
nerve  laid  bare.  No  wonder  that  the  growing 
recognition  of  the  state  of  things  carried  with  it  a 
growing  despair.  The  militant  instinct,  which 
longed  to  arise  and  fight  for  justice,  piteously 
sought  an  object  of  attack,  and  fell  back  restless 
on  an  inward  pain.  The  situation  —  have  we  yet 
escaped  it  ?  —  was  unsurpassed  in  history  for  dra- 
matic power.  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  one  of  the 
men  most  alive  in  his  day  to  social  paradox,  viv- 
idly expressed,  in  his  brilliant  social  poem,  "  The 
Bothie  of  Tober-na-Vuolich,"  the  prevalent  mood  : 

"  Oh  that  the  armies  indeed  were  arrayed !     Oh  joy  of  the  onset ! 

Sound,  thou  Trumpet  of  God,  come  forth,  great  Cause,  and  array  us ; 

King  and  leader  appear,  thy  soldiers  sorrowing-  seek  thee. 

Would  that  the  armies  indeed  were  arrayed,  oh  where  is  the  hattle  ? 

Neither  battle  I  see,  nor  arraying,  nor  King  in  Israel, 

Only  infinite  jumble  and  mess  and  dislocation, 

Backed  by  a  solemn  appeal,  '  For  God's  sake  do  not  stir  there  ! ' " 


214       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

In  this  twilight  of  uncertainty,  what  help  is  of- 
fered by  our  social  guides  ?  At  best  not  very 
much.  Despite  interesting  hints  and  experiments, 
the  period  from  1840  to  1880  was  not  in  England 
socially  constructive.  It  was  better  at  diagnosis 
than  at  prescription.  Conviction  of  sin  must  pre- 
cede newness  of  life  ;  and  to  convince  a  whole 
social  order  of  disease  might  well  take  half  a  cen- 
tury, and  more  than  one  prophetic  voice. 

At  the  same  time,  constructive  thought  was  of 
course  not  absent.  From  the  days  of  Carlyle,  all 
social  critics  sought  for  it :  not  one  of  them  was 
contented  simply  to  denounce.  Their  positive 
ideals  were  all  more  or  less  faint,  contradictory,  or 
fantastic  ;  but  they  are  deeply  interesting  to  us 
still,  partly  because  we  have  not  outgrown  them, 
partly  because  they  prepared  the  way  for  the 
startling  expansion  of  ethical  and  social  theories 
witnessed  by  the  last  twenty  years. 

From  1830  on,  active  minds  were  moving  eagerly 
along  the  two  lines  which  we  are  still  exploring. 
Granted  modern  civilization,  what  should  be  our 
attitude  as  individuals  :  what  our  concerted  action  ? 
The  suggestions  for  personal  guidance  and  the 
counsels  of  personal  duty  are  perhaps  more  inter- 
esting at  first  sight  than  the  wider  speculations, 
for  theories  change  more  swiftly  than  duties  ;  and 
the  social  speculations  of  even  twenty  years  ago 
may  seem  antiquated,  while  appeals  to  the  private 
conscience  are  equally  fresh,  coming  from  the 
songs  of  the  primitive  Aryan  or  from  last  Sunday's 
sermon.  We  shall  follow  the  quest  of  our  authors 


WHAT  TO  DO:    CARLYLE  215 

along  this  line  first,  taking  them  up  one  after  the 
other,  and  then  we  shall  turn  to  a  general  grouping 
of  their  social  theories  and  ideals. 

It  is  significant  to  find  that  the  farther  we  recede 
in  Victorian  literature,  the  more  tentative  are  the 
personal  counsels  offered.  All  the  vehemence  of 
Carlyle  cannot  offset  his  vagueness,  when  he  ceases 
to  denounce  and  attempts  to  guide.  Earliest  writer 
in  whom  the  social  conscience  awakes,  he  has  not 
yet  seen  the  mists  cleared  away  from  the  path  of 
duty.  Distracted  appeals  for  action  alternate  with 
gibes  at  every  practical  line  of  conduct  which  in- 
genuity could  suggest,  in  his  bewildered  and  incon- 
sistent pages.  It  were  unfair  to  deny  a  certain 
positive  value,  perhaps  still  dynamic,  to  Carlyle's 
impassioned  appeals.  His  constant  emphasis  on 
spiritual  factors,  his  respect  for  work  and  protest 
against  inertia,  assuredly  played  their  part  in 
awakening  an  apathetic  generation,  and  are  potent 
in  arousing  apathy  yet.  "  Produce,  produce,"  cried 
he.  "  Were  it  but  the  pitifullest  fragment  of  a 
worldkin,  produce  it  in  God's  name !  "  But  this 
plea  held  almost  nothing  specific.  No  one  could 
expose  quack  medicines  so  mercilessly :  when  it 
came  to  prescribing,  the  case  was  altered.  "  If 
thou  ask  again,  therefore,  on  the'  Morrison's  pill 
hypothesis,  What  is  to  be  done  ?  allow  me  to  reply : 
By  thee,  for  the  present,  almost  nothing.  Thou 
there,  the  thing  for  thee  to  do,  is,  if  possible,  to 
cease  to  be  a  hollow  sounding-shell  of  hearsays, 
egoisms,  purblind  dilettanteisms  :  and  become,  were 
it  on  the  infinitely  small  scale,  a  faithful,  discerning 


216       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

soul."  The  advice  was  salutary,  no  doubt,  but  it 
hardly  told  the  uncertain  pilgrim  which  way  to 
turn.  This  call  to  sincerity,  the  kindred  call  to 
labor,  and  the  final  command,  Find  your  superior 
and  obey  him,  pretty  well  sum  up  the  personal 
gospel  of  Carlyle.  "  That  I  have  been  called  by 
all  the  Newspapers  a  Free  Man  will  avail  me  little 
if  my  pilgrimage  have  ended  in  death  or  wreck. 
Oh  that  the  newspapers  had  called  me  slave,  cow- 
ard, fool,  or  what  it  pleased  their  sweet  voices  to 
call  me,  and  I  had  attained  not  death  but  life. 
Liberty  requires  new  definitions."  l 

Clearly  as  he  saw  the  need  of  guidance,  Carlyle 
no  more  told  men  where  guidance  was  to  be  found, 
than  he  told  them  how  to  set  at  the  work  he  en- 
joined. At  times,  he  looked  for  the  rulers  of  Eng- 
land in  the  British  aristocracy.  At  times,  he  saw 
dimly  that  the  commanding  force  of  the  age  must 
come  from  within,  not  from  without,  the  existing 
order,  appealed  to  the  Captains  of  Industry,  and 
announced  that  the  relation  between  master  and 
man  was  the  point  of  most  dramatic  interest  in  the 
modern  world.  But  as  time  went  on  one  nebulous 
idea  after  another  faded,  and  this  chapter  is  of 
necessity  short.  Carlyle's  weakness  in  any  but  the 
most  general  lines  of  social  suggestion  betrays  a 
period  which  was  only  beginning  to  realize  its  own 
moral  needs ;  and  the  throngs  of  men  who  never- 
theless crowded  to  his  feet  as  disciples  suggest  the 
rarity  of  strong  preaching,  straight  from  heart  to 
heart. 

1  Past  and  Present,  book  iii.  ch.  xiii.  "  Democracy." 


CHAPTER  IX 
WHAT  TO  DO:    ACCORDING  TO  KUSKIN 

RUSKIN  was  Carlyle's  heir,  but  he  was  twenty- 
five  years  younger,  and  in  his  social  thought  the 
constructive  factor  is  far  more  notable,  positive,  and 
sustained.  Too  positive  it  would  seem,  to  the  many 
who  see  in  his  ideas  only  Utopian  vagaries,  spring- 
ing from  the  arrogance  of  a  spoiled  man  of  genius, 
and  the  over-ready  assumptions  of  an  untrained 
mind.  Even  Ruskin's  best  lovers  cannot  deny  oc- 
casional truth  to  these  strictures  :  yet  they  may  be 
happy  in  feeling  that  as  years  pass  by  the  strictures 
grow  less  and  the  appreciation  grows  greater.  It 
is  a  curious  fact  that  Ruskin's  influence,  at  a  com- 
plete discount  fifteen  years  ago,  is  at  present  rising 
again  into  a  force  which  must  be  reckoned  with  in 
England,  and  that  even  severe  political  economists 
may  be  found  quoting  his  opinions  with  respect. 
Such  vicissitudes  in  reputation  hold  in  themselves 
a  world  of  suggestion  concerning  the  movement  of 
the  times. 

Rightly  to  understand  Ruskin's  value,  one  must 
feel  the  exact  scope  of  his  thought.  He  was  not  a 
political  economist,  though  he  sometimes  mistook 
himself  for  one.  Nor  was  he  on  the  other  hand  a 
mere  dreamer.  He  discovered  a  new  field,  —  the 


218       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

field  of  distinctly  social  ethics.  Far  more  clearly 
than  Carlyle,  he  discerned  that  new  conditions  al- 
ways demand  the  evolution  of  a  new  morality :  and 
he  pricked  the  lagging  moral  sense  to  keep  up  with 
the  unfolding  phenomena  of  a  mercantile  age. 

For  no  forms  of  human  activity  can  remain  per- 
manently unmoral,  like  the  activities  of  nature. 
The  very  law  of  their  being  is  that  they  should 
become  more  and  more  intensely  moralized  as  they 
continue.  This  process  is  the  inner  secret  of  the 
advance  of  civilization.  The  family,  for  instance, 
was  originally,  even  after  it  had  emerged  from  con- 
ditions still  more  primitive,  a  purely  natural  insti- 
tution :  it  became,  and  is  yet  becoming,  increasingly 
subject  to  the  refinements  of  the  moral  law.  In  like 
manner,  the  great  world  of  relations  which  minister 
to  the  material  life  must  have,  at  every  point  of  its 
intricate  working,  a  moral  correlate.  As  the  forms 
of  such  relations  change,  this  correlate  may  become 
temporarily  obscured :  to  bring  it  into  the  light,  and 
make  of  it  a  controlling  force,  is  the  work  of  the 
changing  generations.  Trade,  in  its  vast  latter-day 
development,  needs,  then,  as  much  as  warfare  a 
moral  code  ;  nor  can  that  code,  as  is  sometimes  as- 
sumed, be  practically  the  same. 

This  necessity  was  borne  in  on  Euskin's  soul. 
He  insisted  sternly  that  the  most  automatic  actions 
of  our  "business"  life  hold  a  moral  factor  and 
imply  a  moral  ideal :  and  that  the  application  of  the 
Christian  law  to  modern  industrial  society  is  a  task 
which  Christian  folk  cannot  escape.  He  sought  to 
suggest  and  unfold  a  great  play  of  moral  considera- 


WHAT  TO  DO:  RUSKIN  219 

tions  and  duties,  interwoven  with  the  intricacies  of 
industry,  with  production  and  consumption,  with 
labor  and  commerce.  In  this  attempt,  Ruskin  had 
practically  110  precursor  of  importance  in  England. 
It  was  natural  that  the  full  self-consciousness  of  a 
mercantile  age  should  take  some  time  to  awake  and 
to  bring  with  it  the  sense  of  the  subtle  ramifica- 
tions of  jluty.  It  was  also  natural  that  early 
efforts  to  moralize  this  vast  region  of  activity 
should  be  tentative  and  fantastic,  often  fallacious 
and  oftener  misunderstood. 

Ruskin's  primary  assertion  was  the  chief  cause 
of  offense  to  the  generation  of  1860  ;  to  our  own,  it 
is  perhaps  his  chief  claim  to  respect.  He  dismissed 
as  an  unreal  and  unpleasant  figment  the  so-called 
"  economic  man,"  and  put  in  his  place  a  man  com- 
plete in  all  his  faculties  and  desires,  including  his 
moral  instincts,  as  the  unit  with  which  economic 
thought  should  reckon.  He  proclaimed  that  the 
production  and  happy  maintenance  of  men  was  the 
final  aim  of  any  civilization.  "  It  is  open  to  serious 
question,  which  I  leave  to  the  reader's  pondering, 
whether,  among  national  manufactures,  that  of 
Souls  of  a  good  quality  may  not  at  last  turn  out  a 
quite  leadingly  lucrative  one  ?  "  l  "  There  is  no 
Wealth  but  Life ;  life,  including  all  its  powers  of 
love,  of  joy,  and  of  admiration.  That  country  is 
the  richest  which  nourishes  the  greatest  number -- 
of  noble  and  happy  human  beings ;  that  man  is 
richest  who,  having  perfected  the  functions  of  his 
own  life  to  the  utmost,  has  also  the  widest  helpful 
1  Unto  This  Last,  Essay  II. 


220       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

influence,  both  personal  and  by  means  of  his  pos- 
sessions, over  the  lives  of  others."  l 

This  great  generalization  was  pregnant  with  radi- 
cal thought.  Following  it  out,  Ruskin  tried  to 
apply  some  of  its  inferences  in  the  two  most  im- 
portant departments  of  industrial  relations:  pro- 
duction and  consumption.  And  first  he  turned  his 
mind  to  the  ethics  of  production,  as  they  bear  on  the 
two  groups  of  people  engaged  in  supplying  what  the 
world  needs,  —  the  workmen  and  the  employers. 
./  We  have  seen  how  the  consciousness  of  the 
mighty,  silent  host  of  wage-earners  had  been  quietly 
growing,  in  a  civilization  which  had  evolved  them 
into  a  more  distinct  class  than  ever  before,  yet  was 
inclined  to  ignore  them,  except  as  an  economic 
convenience.  Ruskin  was  first  drawn  to  scruti- 
nize this  class,  as  we  know,  by  discovering  the 
stultification  of  the  modern  workman  for  artistic 
purposes.  And  so  it  was  natural  that  the  most 
important  matter  to  study  seemed  to  him  the  rela- 
tion of  occupation  to  manhood.  True  to  his  prin- 
ciple, "there  is  no  wealth  but  life,"  he  would 
consider  first  of  all,  in  the  regulation  of  industry, 
the  reaction  on  the  workman  of  his  employment. 
Cheapness  and  rapidity  of  production  are  in  his 
thought  of  entirely  secondary  importance,  never  to 
be  aimed  at  until  the  reasonable  welfare  of  the 
producer  is  secured.  To  meet  the  sweeping  evils 
to  which  he  thought  our  civilization  subject,  he 
proposed  sweeping  changes.  In  many  trades,  he 
would  reject  much  of  the  machine  work  degrading 
1  Unto  This  Last,  Essay  IV. 


WHAT  TO  DO:    RUSKIN  221 

to  the  workman,  replacing  it  by  those  more  primi- 
tive and  human  methods  which  might  often,  the 
art-critic  incidentally  points  out,  produce  goods  as 
well  as  souls  better  in  quality.  He  recognizes  and 
acknowledges  that  when  the  resources  of  "vital 
power"  have  been  wisely  used,  much  rough  and 
uninteresting  work  will  remain  which  can  be  done 
by  machines  far  better  than  by  men.  In  case  of 
all  work  of  this  type,  he  would  shorten  the  hours 
of  labor  that  scope  for  life  might  be  left ;  and  he 
goes  so  far  as  whimsically  to  suggest  that  the 
menial  work,  degrading  and  deadening  to  the  un- 
privileged, might  be  a  salutary  discipline  to  the 
privileged,  and  might  offer  a  fine  field  of  sacrifice 
and  self-mortification,  for  instance,  to  sentimental 
young  curates  with  a  taste  for  asceticism.  By 
permanent  contracts  he  would  put  an  end  to  the 
present  instability  of  employment :  and  he  would 
regulate  wages,  not  by  the  pressure  of  competition, 
but  by  the  establishment  of  a  "  just  wage  "  corre- 
lated to  a  "  just  price,"  and  determined  by  the 
unit  of  labor-time.  He  does  not  evade  the  question 
of  Unemployment,  which  at  this  point  leaps  into 
his  reader's  mind :  indeed,  most  of  the  manifold  dif- 
ficulties which  these  surprising  suggestions  imply, 
Ruskin  faces  clearly  and  discusses  honestly,  in  a 
detail  which  of  course  cannot  be  reproduced  here. 
His  aim  is  in  no  sense  the  abolition  of  class-distinc- 
tions :  it  is  simply  the  establishment  of  the  laborer, 
under  due  mastership,  in  conditions  of  stable  peace 
and  adequate  livelihood. 

That  these  principles,  however,  are  serenely  sub- 


222       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

versive  of  the  present  state  of  things,  and  that  any 
employer  who  tried  to  practice  them  would  swiftly 
be  ruined,  Ruskin  is  quite  aware.  To  such  consid- 
erations, especially  the  second,  he  quietly  answers, 
Why  not?  Turning  from  the  employed,  he  dis- 
cusses the  true  social  ethics  for  the  other  set  of 
men  engaged  in  production  :  the  merchants  and 
employers.  Few  passages  in  modern  social  criti- 
cism are  more  startling,  more  troubling,  than  the 
noble  chapter  in  "  Unto  This  Last "  l  in  which  Rus- 
kin treats  of  these  men  and  their  duties.  Why  is 
it,  he  asks,  that  an  atmosphere  of  heroism  clings, 
in  the  common  thought,  about  soldier,  doctor,  cler- 
gyman, men  of  varying  professions,  and  around 
the  merchant,  none  ?  Is  it  because  this  profession 
is  less  needful  to  the  community  ?  Americans  may 
remember  that,  for  an  English  audience,  the  force 
of  the  question  is  accented  by  the  national  dis- 
like of  trade  :  but  it  is  not  without  force  for  us, 
too.  Ruskin  answers :  the  reason  for  the  differ- 
etoce  is  that  the  merchant  alone,  among  professional 
men,  puts  the  gaining  of  money  as  his  end  above 
social  service.  An  industrial  civilization  can  only 
incidentally  call  for  the  heroism  of  the  soldier ; 
"  occasions  of  death "  grow  rarer  among  us  day 
by  day.  Yet  a  society  which  calls  for  no  martyr- 
doms can  never  endure.  Is  it  possible  that  we, 
like  other  civilizations  which  have  preceded  us, 
may  find  the  opportunities  for  sacrifice  arising 
from  the  peculiar  conditions  of  our  being,  connect- 
ing themselves  with  those  industrial  relations  which 

1  Unto  This  Last,  ch.  i.  "  The  Roots  of  Honour." 


WHAT  TO  DO:    RUSKIN  223 

have  seemed  so  prosaically  remote  from  the  ideal  ? 
It  may  be  so.  Would  the  merchant  exalt  his  pro- 
fession ?  Let  him  find  his  "  occasion  of  death." 
Where  shall  he  find  it?  In  refusing  to  sell  poor 
goods,  or  to  sacrifice  the  vital  welfare  of  his  work- 
men to  his  own  prosperity.  That  he  will  often  be 
ruined  by  this  policy,  Ruskin  plainly  perceives  ; 
but  that  there  is  any  reason  for  an  employer  to 
escape  ruin  at  the  present  crisis,  any  more  than  for 
an  officer  to  aim  at  preserving  his  life  in  battle, 
or  a  doctor,  in  time  of  plague,  he  fails  to  see.  "  The 
captains  of  Industry,"  Carlyle  had  said,  "  are  verily 
the  leaders  of  the  world."  The  captain  holds 
himself  ready  to  fall,  if  need  be,  by  the  way. 
Our  modern  captains  may  in  time  come  to  feel  a 
new  noblesse  oblige;  and  a  stern  code  of  honor 
may  forbid  them  to  preserve  their  own  financial 
standing  at  the  expense  of  either  the  best  service 
of  the  community  or  the  welfare  of  their  workmen. 
Thus  moralized  and  exalted,  the  post  of  the  em- 
ployer, Ruskin  tells  us  in  flashing  and  winged 
words,  may  become  the  focus  of  heroism  for  the 
modern  world. 

So  much  for  Ruskin's  ethics  of  production, — 
startling  enough  still  to  an  audience  of  to-day,  ap- 
palling to  the  public  of  1860.  Yet  after  all,  only 
a  limited  portion  of  the  community  are  producers, 
and  it  is  a  little  ungracious  for  those  outside  their 
ranks  to  dictate  to  them  stringent  laws  of  social 
sacrifice.  But  there  is  another  aspect  in  which  all 
men  are  involved  in  the  present  industrial  distress, 
^  and  responsible  for  it :  we  are  all  consumers. 


224       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

What  principles   does  Ruskin  lay  down  for  the 
consuming  class,  —  that  is,  for  society  at  large  ? 

No  one  can  say  that  he  is  any  less  severe  —  most 
people  would  add,  less  Utopian  —  here  than  in  his 
former  representations.  For  the  very  first  princi- 
ple which  he  announces  with  lyrical  ardor  of  ut- 
terance is  that  during  the  prevalence  of  miserable 
poverty,  such  as  weighs  down  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion, indulgence  in  luxury  is  a  crime.  More  than 
once  he  disposes  briefly  and  pungently  of  the  time- 
honored  fallacy  that  the  purchase  and  encourage- 
ment of  luxuries  relieves  economic  distress,  and  in 
some  mysterious  way  is  an  act  of  social  virtue. 
As  early  as  1857,  his  first  essay  on  social  matters, 
"  The  Political  Economy  of  Art,"  handled  this 
question;  and  "Unto  This  Last"  and  "  Munera 
Pulveris  "  reiterated  with  increasing  emphasis  his 
conviction  that,  while  thousands  are  suffering  from 
slow  starvation  in  our  very  midst,  only  lack  of  im- 
agination renders  personal  expenditure  a  pleasure 
to  any  one  in  a  Christian  country.  His  first  full, 
grave,  and  comprehensive  utterance  on  social  pro- 
blems ends  with  the  heartfelt  and  serious  words  : 
"  Consider  whether,  even  supposing  it  guiltless, 
luxury  would  be  desired  by  any  of  us  if  we  saw 
clearly  at  our  sides  the  misery  which  accompanies 
it  in  the  world.  Luxury  is  indeed  possible  in  the 
future  —  innocent  and  exquisite  ;  luxury  for  all, 
and  by  the  help  of  all ;  but  luxury  at  present  can 
only  be  enjoyed  by  the  ignorant ;  the  cruelest  man 
living  could  not  sit  at  his  feast  unless  he  sat  blind- 
fold." i 

1  Unto  This  Last,  "  Conclusion." 


WHAT   TO  DO:    RUSKIN  225 

This  plea  for  abstention  from  luxury  sounds 
strangely  on  the  lips  of  the  prophet  of  the  aesthetic 
revival,  who  had  done  more  than  any  one  man  to 
awaken  the  craving  for  beauty  among  his  country- 
men. Yet  even  Ruskin 's  early  work,  with  its  im- 
passioned and  manifold  efforts  to  bring  the  world's 
loveliness  into  contact  with  men's  souls,  had  at 
heart  a  profound  longing  for  simplicity,  a  convic- 
tion that  we  are  meant  to  find  our  joy,  our  peace, 
not  in  the  elaboration  of  apparatus,  but  in  the  con- 
templation of  nature.  William  Morris  tells  us  in 
his  "  News  from  Nowhere  "  that  the  mood  of  the 
future,  "  the  spirit  of  the  new  days,  was  to  be  de- 
light in  the  life  of  the  world :  intense  and  almost 
overweening  love  of  the  very  skin  and  surface  of 
the  earth  on  which  man  dwells.  .  .  .  All  other 
moods  save  this  had  been  exhausted."  Such  a 
mood,  only  touched  with  clear  recognition  of  the 
spiritual  mystery  and  message  of  Nature,  is  that 
which  Ruskin  from  the  first  wistfully  sought. 

It  was  by  no  strained  transition  that  the  thoughts 
of  "Modern  Painters  "  developed  in  a  tender  con- 
science the  feeling  that  to  swathe  life  in  luxuries 
was  a  wrong  to  society  as  well  as  to  the  soul.  Al- 
ready, in  the  second  volume  of  this  book,  Ruskin 
was  questioning  with  the  fervid  and  overwrought 
eloquence  of  his  youth,  how  far  even  the  contem- 
plation of  beauty  has  a  right  to  absorb  us  in  this 
world  of  pain.  The  question  recurred  with  in- 
creasing force,  till  the  principles  of  his  maturer 
life  transformed  the  purely  personal  impulse  of 
revolt  into  a  larger  social  creed  and  a  specific  rule 


226       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

of  conduct.  The  distinction  between  material  and 
artistic  luxury  Ruskin  always  clearly  draws,  nor  is 
he  ever  deserted  by  the  hope  that  the  time  shall 
come  when  the  race,  housed  and  fed,  may  spare  its 
energies  for  the  creation  of  values  of  mere  delight ; 
but  pending  the  present  distress,  his  counsel  is 
stringent  and  clear.  "  Under  pressure  of  poverty, 
all  production  to  be  of  useful  articles,"  l  is  one  of 
his  primary  rules.  "  You  can  never  be  wrong," 
he  says  in  "  Munera  Pulveris,"  "  in  employing 
any  laborer  to  produce  food,  house-room,  clothes, 
or  fuel :  but  you  are  always  wrong  if  you  employ 
him  to  produce  nothing  (for  then  some  other  la- 
borer must  be  worked  double  time  to  feed  him) 
and  you  are  generally  wrong  at  present  if  you  em- 
ploy him  (unless  he  can  do  nothing  else)  to  pro- 
duce works  of  art  or  luxuries."  2  Perhaps  a  brief 
passage  from  "  Time  and  Tide  "  sums  up  most 
quietly  and  concisely  Ruskin's  later  teaching : 
"  It  is  popularly  supposed  that  it  benefits  a  nation 
to  invent  a  want.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  true 
benefit  is  in  extinguishing  a  want,  —  in  living 
with  as  few  wants  as  possible.'' 

Ruskin  is  not  alone  in  his  paradox :  he  joins  a 
mighty  fellowship.  "  Civilization :  its  Cause  and 
Cure,"  is  the  heading  to  much  modern  perplexity ; 
and  even  those  for  whom  such  a  phrase  is  too 
drastic  in  suggestion  are  often  coming  to  feel  that 
the  real  quest  of  civilization,  however  obscured,  is 
to  bring  the  race  to  Nature.  The  return  to  nature 

1  The  Queen  of  the  A  ir,  ch.  iii. 

2  Munera  Pulveris,  ch.  vi.  "  Mastership.  " 


WHAT  TO  DO:    RUSKIN  227 

heralded  by  Kousseau,  and  powerfully  attractive  in 
the  post-revolutionary  period,  has  proved  more  than 
a  sentimental  incident.  Its  appeal  has  grown 
clearer  and  clearer  as  society  has  become  more 
intricate,  and  it  haunts  people  to-day  as  the  long- 
ing for  mountain  air  haunts  a  sensitive  person  in  a 
ballroom.  Our  comfort  stifles  us,  the  elaborate 
forms  and  objects  that  surround  us  lay  on  us  an 
unbearable  burden,  and  we  realize  that  would  we 
gain  once  more  the  free  heart  of  the  child,  we 
must  return  to  child-conditions.  The  Transcen- 
dentalists  in  America,  —  Emerson,  Whitman,  and 
above  all  Thoreau, —  Tolstoi  in  Russia,  Maeterlinck 
in  Belgium,  Hauptmann  in  Germany,  and  a  whole 
group,  constantly  widening,  of  young  socialists  in 
England,  have  expressed  this  impulse  as  clearly  as 
Rousseau  or  Obermann  or  Lamartine  or  Shelley  or 
Wordsworth  or  Byron.  As  the  impulse  advances, 
it  recognizes  that  the  natural  life  of  the  future 
cannot  be  won  by  mere  reaction,  by  such  quest  of 
savage  solitude  as  Chateaubriand  celebrated,  or 
such  indulgence  of  wild  desire  as  Byron  sought ; 
but  that  it  must  be  a  life  developed  on  a  mighty 
background  of  race-experience.  Having  conquered, 
out  of  many  trials  with  the  false  and  much  know- 
ledge of  what  artificial  conditions  can  offer,  the 
rare  power  to  reject,  it  will  select  for  its  environ- 
ment those  things  that  abide  and  that  are  open  to 
all,  and  will  shape  itself  into  wise  and  tranquil 
harmony  with  the  world  as  it  issued  from  the  hand 
of  God. 

How   far  the  duty  of  simplification  should  ex- 


228       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

tend,  and  where  the  line  of  personal  possessions 
should  be  drawn,  is  of  course  a  matter  for  private 
decision  :  nor  does  Ruskin  try  to  decide  it  speci- 
fically, being  quite  aware  of  the  difficulty  and  com- 
plexity of  the  question.  That  there  is  a  point 
where  asceticism  becomes  folly  and  cripples  life 
instead  of  ministering  to  it,  he  never  doubts,  and 
he  knows  the  unwisdom  of  pressing  people  too  far, 
lest  they  rebel.  A  rich  old  lady  was  once  per- 
suaded by  a  zealous  evangelical  curate  to  renounce 
the  world.  She  sold  her  house,  she  scattered  her 
establishment,  she  settled  herself  in  a  cheap  lodg- 
ing, and  invited  the  curate  to  tea.  He  came.  The 
meal  was  of  the  simplest ;  but  the  spoons  were  sil- 
ver. The  curate,  young  and  consistent,  remon- 
strated, and  demanded  that  they  be  sold,  and  the 
price  given  to  the  Lord.  But  the  social  conscience 
of  his  parishioner  had  been  strained  to  the  utmost ; 
to  eat  with  pewter  was  more  than  she  could  bear ; 
and  the  curate  had  ruined  his  cause.  For  willing, 
since  sin  she  must,  to  sin  with  comfort,  she  bought 
back  her  house  and  her  horses,  reassembled  her 
servants,  and  returned  to  all  her  worldly  ways. 
Few  mortals  live  who  have  not  their  silver  spoons  : 
the  point  comes  to  every  one  where  readiness  to 
refrain  ceases.  To  find  this  point  is  a  purely  per- 
sonal matter,  and  it  is  left  so  by  Ruskin.  "  There 
are  therefore  three  things  to  be  enforced,"  he  says, 
"  in  employing  any  poor  person.  You  must  em- 
ploy him  first  to  make  useful  things ;  second,  of 
the  several  (suppose  equally  useful)  things  he  can 
produce,  you  must  set  him  to  make  that  which  will 


WHAT   TO  DO:    RUSKIN  229 

cause  him  to  lead  the  healthiest  life ;  lastly,  of  the 
things  produced,  it  remains  a  question  of  wisdom 
and  conscience  how  much  you  are  to  take  yourself, 
and  how  much  to  leave  to  others." 

It  is  noteworthy,  however,  that  any  one  who 
follows  Ruskin's  suggestions,  and  brings  the  moral 
factor  into  all  his  life  as  a  consumer,  will  find  the 
question  of  simplicity  pretty  well  determined  for 
him  by  the  shrinkage  of  his  income.  Ruskin  is 
very  strenuous  in  insisting  that  so  far  as  possible 
we  should  know  the  conditions  under  which  our 
goods  were  made.  Now,  generally  speaking,  — 

"  Sweat-shops  we  rail  at,  sad  and  serious, 
Yet  hunt  the  trail  of  cheapness  with  the  rest ; 
For  look,  how  far  the  east  is  from  the  west, 
So  far  hath  Consequence  heen  set  from  us." 

And  so  complex  are  our  conditions,  that  any  one 
who  attempts  to  keep  his  practical  relations  and 
functions  free  from  the  taint  of  economic  wrong, 
is  likely  to  be  both  somewhat  unhappy  and  very 
poor. 

It  is  open  to  inquiry,  however,  whether  such 
a  man  might  not  know  a  peculiar  blessedness. 
The  feeling  that  Poverty  may  be  a  good  instead  of 
an  evil  seems  creeping  back  into  the  world  once 
more,  a  surprised  and  modest  guest.  Again  the 
message  of  Langland  sounds  and  summons,  and 
men  are  found  who  "  praise  poverty  for  best,  if 
patience  it  follow."  For  suddenly,  in  alien  days, 
the  Spirit  loved  by  St.  Francis  has  reappeared  and 
walks  our  modern  earth,  though  unseen  except  by 
the  watchful  eyes  of  dreamers. 


230       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

Such  a  dreamer  is  Ruskin.  Yet  his  writings 
hold  no  lack  of  suggestions  immediate,  practical, 
and  simple.  No  other  social  critic  has  given  so 
many  feasible  commands,  for  those  who  are  really 
in  earnest  to  follow  while  the  world  waits  for  those 
larger  changes  which  he  so  daringly  imagines. 
The  great  principles  which  we  have  outlined  may 
seem  too  subtle  or  too  sweeping  for  our  acceptance. 
We  may  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  eco- 
nomic production,  and  our  relations  as  consumers 
may  seem  too  deeply  embedded  in  the  automatic 
play  of  circumstance  for  us  to  affect  them.  But 
the  social  belief  of  Ruskin  goes  beyond  what  we 
may  call  the  passive  aspects  of  life.  It  treats  of 
positive,  practical  matters,  duties  open  to  the  whole 
world.  We  have  already  quoted  from  that  touch- 
ing elegiac  strain,  the  lecture  on  "  The  Mystery  of 
Life,"  the  review  of  the  achievement,  or  rather 
the  failure,  of  the  centuries.  From  this  review, 
Ruskin  infers  our  present  duty  :  — 

"  Whatever  our  station  in  life  may  be,  at  this 
crisis  those  of  us  who  mean  to  f  ulfill  our  duty  ought, 
first,  to  live  on  as  little  as  we  can  ;  and  secondly  to 
do  all  the  wholesome  work  for  it  we  can,  and  to 
spend  all  we  can  spare  in  doing  all  the  sure  good 
we  can.  And  sure  good  is  first  in  feeding  people, 
then  in  dressing  people,  then  in  lodging  people, 
and  lastly  in  rightly  pleasing  people,  with  arts  or 
sciences,  or  any  other  subject  of  thought." 

As  Ruskin  conceives  them,  these  social  functions, 
which  sound  so  simple,  imply  of  course,  on  a 
large  scale,  perfect  national  housekeeping,  and  on 


WHAT  TO  DO:    RUSKIN  231 

a  smaller  scale,  beside  their  literal  meaning,  the 
sort  of  activity  illustrated  by  his  own  efforts  to 
promote  tenement  house  reform. 

"  These,  then,  are  the  three  first  needs  of  civil- 
ized life  ;  and  the  law  for  every  Christian  man 
and  woman  is,  that  they  shall  be  in  direct  service 
towards  one  of  these  three  needs,  as  far  as  is  con- 
sistent with  their  own  special  occupation,  and  if 
they  have  no  special  business  then  wholly  in  one 
of  these  services.  And  out  of  such  exertion  in 
plain  duty,  all  other  good  will  come." 

The  extension  of  the  moral  consciousness  through 
all  relations  of  production  and  consumption ;  the 
simplification  of  life,  and  the  abandonment  of  lux- 
ury at  least  during  the  present  crisis ;  the  active 
devotion  to  some  form  of  social  service ;  these  are 
the  most  vital  factors  of  Ruskin's  social  teaching 
as  it  affects  the  individual.  They  are  still  star- 
tling, still  unreceived :  yet  parts  of  them  at  all 
events  fall  less  strangely  on  our  ears  than  on  those 
of  the  generation  of  1860.  The  fantastic  though 
often  lovely  vagaries,  and  the  whimsical  exaggera- 
tion with  which  they  were  mingled,  did  much  to 
discredit  them.  They  were  hard  sayings  at  best. 
Moreover,  Ruskin's  thought  grew  and  changed  as 
he  continued  to  write,  and  was  full  of  inconsisten- 
cies of  detail  and  theory,  though  in  regard  to  fun- 
damental principles  there  was  from  first  to  last 
no  wavering,  only  increasing  clearness  and  empha- 
sis. It  would  be  hard  to  say  whether  the  world 
were  more  puzzled  or  offended  when  the  man  who 


232       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

had  purveyed  its  pleasures  took  to  denouncing  its 
sins.  Great  allowances  should  be  made  for  a  poet 
and  dreamer,  forced  by  circumstance  into  the  alien 
and  uncongenial  region  of  economic  theories  and 
facts.  Such  a  man  is  likely  to  mingle  his  wisdom 
with  the  logic  of  dreams.  Men  are  likely  to  reject 
him  without  a  hearing,  instead  of  making  allow- 
ances, and  realizing  that  poetry  holds  at  times  the 
truth  of  the  future.  Not  all  Ruskin's  popular- 
ity could  avert  this  fate.  Obloquy  and  apathy 
greeted  what  he  believed  to  be  the  message  of  sal- 
vation ;  he  sheathed  himself  for  response  in  iron- 
ical and  extreme  utterances  that  belied  his  gentle- 
ness of  heart  and  clearness  of  vision.  At  last  his 
sensitive  nature,  more  and  more  wrought  and 
strained  by  contact  with  the  forces  of  inertia  and 
selfishness,  turned  to  madness,  and  what  should 
have  been  one  of  the  happiest  careers  of  the  cen- 
tury was  changed  into  a  tragedy  and  a  martyrdom. 


CHAPTER  X 

WHAT   TO    DO  :    ACCORDING   TO   ARNOLD 

WHILE  Ruskin's  expression  if  not  his  thought 
was  becoming  more  and  more  strained  and  ex- 
treme, the  modern  school  of  political  economy  was 
arising.  Slowly  it  developed  that  opposition  to 
the  Manchester  School,  that  enlarged  idea  of  the  \J '.  J 
scope  of  its  science,  which,  if  not  yet  accepted,  is 
still  every  day  gaining  ground.  In  a  complete  his- 
tory of  social  thought,  the  speculations  of  this 
school  would  occupy  a  leading  place  ;  but  it  takes 
a  long  time  for  such  speculations  to  sift  into  litera- 
ture, and  thence  into  life  ;  and  with  literature,  this 
book  is  concerned. 

The  general  thought  and  feeling  turned  indeed 
at  about  this  time  quite  a  sharp  corner  ;  but  it  was 
not  in  the  direction  of  the  economists.  In  our 
rapid  and  inadequate  sketch,  we  have  reached  the 
decade  between  1870  and  1880.  Novel  and  essay 
alike  had  witnessed  to  the  awakening  of  the  social 
consciousness  ;  and  now  that  consciousness,  per- 
haps strained  too  long  on  one  point,  revolted. 

In  1870,  the  century  felt  itself  already  very  old. 
Romanticism  as  a  tradition  was  played  out ;  the 
sceculum  realisticum  was  in  full  sway.  Rossetti 
and  the  few  mournful  spirits  who  remained  true  to 


234       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

the  great  romantic  tradition  and  intensified  it,  were 
living  consciously  isolated  in  an  alien  world.  Their 
time  was  to  come,  and  a  critical,  disillusioned  cen- 
tury was  to  end  with  a  renascence  of  wonder  and 
mysticism :  but  just  now,  wonder  was  in  abeyance, 
and  mysticism  despised.  Reaction  from  the  ill- 
fated  Utopias  of  '48  still  inspired  a  sense  of  cau- 
tion and  disillusion.  Thirty  years  of  restlessness, 
speculation,  revolution,  and  spasmodic  industrial 
agitation  had  left  social  distress  apparently  just 
where  it  was  before ;  and  an  impatient  instinct 
made  people  turn  away  their  eyes  and  ears,  and 
refuse  to  listen  to  any  more  hortatory  and  impas- 
sioned invective  against  industrial  wrongs.  Car- 
lyle  no  longer  struggled  obscurely  for  recognition. 
His  genius  was  recognized ;  his  message,  judged 
by  its  salient  inconsistencies,  dismissed  as  a  whole, 
while  admired  in  parts.  Ruskin  had  an  audience 
composed  of  a  few  cranks  and  a  few  simple- 
hearted  ;  and  the  mixture  of  unpalatable  truth  and 
untenable  vagary  in  his  writings  chiefly  served  for 
the  time  being  to  throw  unconventional  social 
thought  into  discredit.  The  French  Commune  of 
1870  quickened  international  fears  and  hopes  less 
than  the  revolution  of  1848  had  done ;  for  it 
seemed  so  obviously  the  result  of  conditions  pe- 
culiar to  unhappy  France  that  the  other  nations 
simply  retired  with  satisfaction  into  their  own 
sense  of  conservative  social  security.  So  far  as 
the  misery  of  the  poor  was  concerned,  the  rise  of 
practical  philanthropy  and  of  sociological  investi- 
gation were  applying  temporary  balm  to  the  public 


WHAT  TO  DO:  ARNOLD  235 

conscience.  The  decade  marked  a  reaction  in  so- 
cial passion,  and  England  seemed  slipping  back 
into  the  apathy  and  indifference,  though  hardly 
into  the  complacency,  of  1830. 

With  society  in  this  state  of  mind,  nothing  could 
have  been  more  salutary  than  the  tone  adopted  by  / 
Arnold.  He  showed  the  social  landscape  from  a 
new  point  of  view.  The  social  prophets  from 
1830  to  1870  had  been  trying  to  reach  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  public  through  its  conscience  ;  Ar- 
nold tried  to  reach  its  conscience  through  its  in- 
telligence. His  predecessors  had  been  pointing 
out  the  sins  of  the  rich  and  the  deprivations  of  the 
poor ;  he  busied  himself  with  the  deprivations  of 
the  rich,  and  let  the  sins  of  all  classes  severely 
alone. 

Ridicule  is  much  harder  to  bear  than  denuncia- 
tion, especially  when  it  is  the  burden  of  books 
singularly  clever  and  entertaining.  Arnold  stung 
his  public  into  attention.  His  shafts  flew  straight, 
and  rankled.  "  Culture  and  Anarchy "  moves 
with  a  flexible,  mocking,  scintillating  ease,  which 
may  irritate  and  antagonize,  but  can  never  bore, 
the  reader.  Languor  is  not  compatible  with  its 
pages.  In  its  way,  it  is  as  quickening  a  book  as 
"  Sartor  Resartus."  Its  effect  may  have  been  less 
because  in  any  community  there  are  fewer  people 
to  respond  to  an  intellectual  than  to  a  moral  stimu- 
lus ;  but  it  did  its  work,  it  aroused  an  entirely  new 
set  of  hearers  to  the  recognition  of  anarchy  in  our 
so-called  "  order,"  and  it  started  an  impulse  for 
reform  and  change  in  a  new  direction. 


236       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

Despite  Arnold's  scoffing  manner,  the  critics 
who  accused  him  of  flippancy  were  wide  of  the 
mark.  The  refreshing  lightness  of  his  tone  hid 
deep  earnestness  and  strong  thinking.  Through 
appeal  as  through  invective,  he  eschewed  ethical 
phraseology  and  any  taint  of  cant.  Lack  of  light 
troubled  him  more  than  selfishness  or  greed.  To 
shake  off  intellectual  rigidity  and  self-satisfaction ; 
to  permit  the  free  play  of  consciousness  about  so- 
cial conventions,  and  no  longer  to  assume  them  as 
immutable ;  to  despise  the  ideals  of  the  Philistines 
and  to  come  out  from  among  them,  —  such  was 
his  summons  to  his  readers. 

With  that  instinct  for  large  historical  views 
which  Matthew  Arnold  probably  inherited  from 
his  father,  he  sought  in  the  past  for  a  great  expres- 
sion of  the  attitude  he  admired.  He  found  it  in 
the  spirit  of  Greece,  and  following  a  hint  of  Heine's, 
he  adopted  the  distinction  between  Hellenism  and 
Hebraism,  and  made  of  it  the  centre  and  pivot  in 
his  interpretation  of  English  life.  Arnold's  study 
of  these  two  tendencies,  and  his  application  of  them, 
is  one  of  the  most  illuminating  parts  of  his  teach- 
ing. It  was  of  course  Hellenism  which  he  sought 
(V-  to  foster :  Hellenism,  with  its  stress  on  intelligence 
*  V/N  and  gentleness,  its  demand  for  sincerity  of  thought 
rather  than  of  heart.  Nor  was  the  reason  for 
Arnold's  strong  accent  on  the  Greek  spirit  any 
mere  personal  preference ;  it  was  his  conviction 
that,  while  both  factors  are  necessary  in  social 
evolution  rightly  viewed,  his  own  particular  race 
had  already  too  much  of  an  Hebraic  bent.  "  The 


WHAT  TO  DO:  ARNOLD  237 

governing  idea  of  Hellenism,"  which  is,  as  he  tells 
us,  "  spontaneity  of  consciousness,"  seems  to  him 
far  more  important  to  latter-day  England  than  that 
"  strictness  of  conscience  "  which  belongs  to  Hebra- 
ism, and  of  which  the  English  nation,  since  the 
first  days  of  Puritanism,  has  had  so  large  a  share. 
"  The  uppermost  idea  with  Hellenism  is  to  see 
things  as  they  really  are  :  the  uppermost  idea  with 
Hebraism  is  conduct  and  obedience."  "  Energy 
driving  at  practice  "  is  not  lacking  in  the  English 
people,  but  "  the  intelligence  driving  at  those  ideas 
which  are,  after  all,  the  basis  of  right  practice  "  is 
woefully  absent  among  them.  The  remedy  must  be 
deeper  penetration  into  the  eternal  truths  of  the 
inner  life ;  clearer,  more  disinterested  understand- 
ing of  relations,  of  historic  perspectives,  and  conse- 
quently of  the  present  state  of  things ;  escape  from 
prejudice,  narrowness,  false  dogmatism,  by  bathing 
and  floating  our  petrified  ideas  in  the  large  current 
of  the  great  thoughts  of  the  world.  And  mean- 
while we  must  wholly  abstain  from  action. 

It  is  curious,  turning  from  Carlyle  and  Ruskin, 
to  hear  the  English  arraigned  for  over-strictness  of 
conscience ;  and  it  may  appear  indeed  a  paradox 
to  seek  to  heal  the  clamorous,  pitiful  needs  of  the 
very  practical  world  by  self-culture.  Yet  as  one 
reads  Arnold's  brilliant  analysis  of  the  average 
Englishman,  he  realizes  that  inability  to  see  may 
be  an  even  more  fundamental  barrier  to  wholesome 
change  than  reluctance  to  act.  Arnold  is  keenly 
aware  that  modern  society  is  dealing  with  tremen- 
dous forces,  which  sooner  or  later  it  must  master 


238       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

and  control.  But  for  such  mastery,  understanding 
is,  he  insists,  the  chief  requisite.  "  Now  the  iron 
force  of  adhesion  to  the  old  routine  —  social,  polit- 
ical, religious  —  has  wonderfully  yielded :  the  iron 
force  of  exclusion  of  all  that  is  new  has  wonder- 
fully yielded.  The  danger  now  is,  not  that  people 
should  obstinately  refuse  to  allow  anything  but 
their  old  routine  to  pass  for  reason  and  the  will  of 
God,  but  either  that  they  should  allow  some  novelty 
or  other  to  pass  for  these  too  easily,  or  else  that 
they  should  underrate  the  importance  of  them  alto- 
gether, and  think  it  enough  to  follow  action  for  its 
own  sake,  without  troubling  themselves  to  make 
reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail  therein."  l  "  It 
is  said  that  a  man  with  my  theories  of  sweetness 
and  light  is  full  of  antipathy  against  the  rougher 
and  coarser  movements  going  on  around  him,  that 
he  will  not  lend  a  hand  to  the  humble  operation  of 
uprooting  evil  by  their  means,  and  that  therefore 
the  believers  in  action  grow  impatient  with  him. 
But  what  if  rough  and  coarse  action,  ill-calculated 
action,  action  with  insufficient  light,  is,  and  has  for 
a  long  time  been,  our  bane  ?  What  if  our  urgent 
want  now  is,  not  to  act  at  any  price,  but  rather  to 
lay  in  a  stock  of  light  for  our  difficulties?  "  2 

The  danger  in  this  sort  of  teaching  is  of  course 
that  it  will  be  eagerly  taken  as  sanction  by  indo- 
lence. Its  high  intellectual  seriousness,  its  call 
to  ascetic  energy  of  thought,  will  be  passed  over 
unheeded  by  throngs  of  people  who  hail  any  theory 

1  Culture  and  Anarchy,  eh.  i. 

2  Ibid.,  ch.  ii. 


WHAT   TO  DO:   ARNOLD  239 

that  bids  them  turn  away  from  action,  finding 
in  it  encouragement  to  ignore  altogether  questions 
of  the  larger  life,  and  to  feel  a  certain  superiority 
in  the  very  negligence.  Arnold,  as  popularly  un- 
derstood, represents  the  intellectual  attitude  that 
thought  itself  most  enlightened  from  1870  for 
twenty  odd  years.  It  is  an  attitude  still  prevalent 
enough,  as  journalism  and  universities  can  testify. 
All  around  us,  we  meet  its  urbane,  subtle,  satirical 
spirit,  its  polite  nihilism,  its  suspicion  of  enthusiasm 
and  of  practical  effort,  its  knack  of  rousing  to  real 
vigor  only  when  the  enthusiasms  of  other  people 
are  to  be  snubbed.  So  common  is  it  still,  so  attrac- 
tive a  refuge  for  the  sensitive  from  the  brutalities 
of  life  and  the  insistence  of  its  problems,  that  one 
hesitates  even  to  hint  that  it  is  becoming  super- 
seded. Yet  surely  a  new  attitude  is  springing  up 
beside  it,  in  college  and  city,  in  literature  and 
art ;  and  already  we  look  back  to  Arnold's  strong 
and  vivid  work  as  belonging  rather  to  history  than 
to  the  things  that  are. 

But  in  Arnold  himself,  writing  when  he  did,  the 
attitude  was  almost  wholly  noble.  His  was  no  de- 
sire for  a  shrinking  from  the  common  life  into  the 
pleasures  of  an  isolated  minority.  His  aim,  through 
writings  which  have  been  curiously  misunderstood 
or  heeded  only  in  parts,  was  everywhere  social. 
In  one  of  his  last  poems,  he  tells  us  of  a  vision 
that  came  to  him  among  the  beloved  solitudes  of 
the  Alps,  —  the  vision  of  Senancourt,  the  man 
of  the  Revolution,  who  in  his  day  had  withdrawn  to 
the  wilderness,  unable  to  endure  the  storms  of 


240       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 


passion  which  agitated  the  world.  And  the  mes- 
sage of  Senancourt  to  the  modern  poet,  who  has  so 
much  in  fellowship  with  him,  is  at  once  a  warning 
and  an  incentive.  He  speaks  of  himself,  and  then 
turns  to  his  brother  of  the  future  :  — 

"  Though  late,  though  weak,  though  dimmed,  yet  tell 
Hope  to  a  world  new-made ! 

What  still  of  strength  is  left,  employ 
This  end  to  help  attain : 
One  common  wave  of  hope  and  joy 
Lifting  mankind  again." 1 

The  attainment  of  this  "  common  wave  of  hope  and 
joy  "  is  the  end  and  aim  of  Arnold's  social  writings : 
there  is  no  stronger  social  idealist  than  this  most 
fastidious  of  critics.  His  stress  on  sweetness  and 
light  leads  straight  to  his  conviction  of  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  privileged :  a  responsibility  that  can 
never  rest  till  the  highest  joys  of  life  become  the 
common  heritage.  If  he  pleads  for  culture,  he 
seeks  a  culture  which  all  can  share ;  if  he  depre- 
cates action,  it  is  simply  because  action  is  prema- 
ture. He  bears  in  his  soul  the  unquenchable 
modern  desire  for  the  good  of  the  collective  whole. 
"  He  who  works  for  sweetness  and  light,  works 
to  make  reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail.  He 
who  works  for  machinery,  he  who  works  for  hatred, 
works  only  for  confusion.  Culture  looks  beyond 
machinery,  culture  hates  hatred;  culture  has  one 
great  passion,  the  passion  for  sweetness  and  light. 
It  has  one  even  yet  greater !  —  the  passion  for 
making  them  prevail.  It  is  not  satisfied  till  we  all 

1  Obermann  Once  More. 


WHAT  TO  DO:  ARNOLD  241 

come  to  a  perfect  man ;  it  knows  that  the  sweetness 
and  light  of  the  few  must  be  imperfect  until  the 
raw  and  unkindled  masses  of  humanity  are  touched 
with  sweetness  and  light.  "  1 

In  such  passages  we  see  the  high  seriousness  and  IT.  0^7  0 
noble  breadth  of  the  man  whom  careless  readers  (^_^^  • 
flouted  as  an  intellectual  snob.  It  is  indeed,  how-  1?  $& 
ever,  a  far  cry  from  the  vehement  appeal  for  action 
at  any  cost,  of  any  kind,  made  by  Carlyle  in  1840, 
to  this  timorous  demand  for  consideration  and  for 
pause;  yet  Arnold  utters  his  plea  as  truly  as 
Carlyle  uttered  his,  out  of  a  deep  desire  for  a  gen- 
eral good.  The  later  plea  has  a  pathetic  undertone. 
For  the  dangers,  during  the  thirty  years  from  1840 
to  1870,  had  neither  changed  nor  lessened:  they 
had  simply  drawn  nearer ;  but  there  was  no  longer 
any  trumpet-voice  to  call  the  sons  of  deliverance 
to  rally.  Rather  they  were  bidden,  each  man  to 
his  hermitage  of  thought,  there  to  reflect,  pause, 
and  bide  his  time.  To  deprecate  action  was  the 
best  wisdom,  the  safest  counsel,  that  the  ablest 
social  critic  could  offer. 

It  was  a  strange  reversal  of  the  natural  move- 
ment of  forces,  and  many  things  might  be  inferred 
from  this  mood  of  hesitation  which  suddenly  over- 
took the  thinking  public.  The  social  situation  was 
evidently,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Victorian  period, 
more  complex  than  the  most  far-sighted  critic  had 
imagined.  A  whole  generation  had  brooded  over 
it  with  increasing  bewilderment ;  and  in  1870, 
when  thirty  years  had  passed,  the  chief  counsel 

1  Culture  and  Anarchy,  ch.   i. 


242       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

that  commended  itself  to  the  clearest  minds  was  to 
call  a  halt,  dough's  urgent,  humorous  appeal, 
"For  God's  sake,  do  not  stir  there,"  still  echoed 
as  the  watchword  of  the  hour.  Arnold's  plea  for 
recoil  into  inaction  was  almost  the  only  intelligible 
word  of  social  thought.  It  was  the  last,  before  a 
new  period  which  suddenly  revealed  a  new  force. 
Social  thought  had  reached  an  impasse,  from  which 
no  by-way  of  escape  seemed  to  lead  to  freedom.  It 
was  the  privilege  of  the  men  who  wrote  and  wrought 
after  1880  to  start  upon  a  track  which,  not  yet 
followed  to  the  end,  appears  at  least  to  open  toward 
a  light  that  brightens  as  we  proceed. 


CHAPTER    XI 

TOWARD   DEMOCRACY 

SWEEPING  plans  of  reform  are  in  discredit  with 
a  great  many  people  ;  for  it  is  claimed,  with  some 
show  of  justice,  that  no  change  is  worth  anything 
except  a  change  in  the  human  heart.  Yet  this  is 
only  one  side  of  the  truth ;  good  institutions  make 
good  men,  as  surely  as  good  men  make  good  insti- 
tutions. Every  English  thinker  of  the  last  gener- 
ation saw  that,  till  the  millennium  should  come, 
the  mere  attempt  to  regenerate  individuals  would 
never  renovate  society.  As  soon  as  individuals  are 
regenerated,  they  set  to  work  to  alter  conditions, 
and  a  new  collective  conscience  must  express  itself 
not  only  through  personal  action,  but  in  new  social 
organization  of  the  collective  life. 

Toward  some  ideal  of  social  reconstruction  our 
fathers  were  all  feeling  their  way  in  the  dark. 
Perhaps  the  chief  value  of  their  tentative  thought 
to  us  is  that  we  may  see  in  it  the  genesis  of  our 
own.  That  is  the  best  conviction  for  the  present 
toward  which  the  depths  of  the  past  have  moved. 
On  the  surface  of  any  period  lie  presumptions, 
assumptions  enow,  the  lazy  foam  of  opinion  left 
by  the  receding  breakers  of  the  past.  Beneath 
are  profounder  instincts  of  mind  and  spirit,  stir- 


244       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

ring  in  seeming  isolation,  yet  irresistibly  drawn 
into  one  current  of  tendency.  Find  these,  and 
they  carry  us  onward  to  that  future  of  the  last 
generation  which  is  the  present  of  our  own. 

The  most  important  of  these  currents  in  our 
century  we  shall  find  if  we  look  for  the  attitude  of 
our  fathers  toward  democracy.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  Victorian  age,  this  attitude  was  by  no  means 
a  foregone  conclusion.  Democracy  the  whole  civ- 
ilized world  was  indeed  facing ;  but  America  alone 
among  the  great  nations  had  accepted  it,  and  her 
example  through  this  epoch  was  not,  as  we  have 
seen,  especially  reassuring  to  Europe.  Many  of 
the  most  ardent  protests  against  social  and  indus- 
trial injustice,  many  of  the  most  radical  utterances 
made,  came  from  men  who  were  stanch  monarch- 
ists and  aristocrats,  and  who  often  indeed  thought 
that  they  saw  in  the  progress  of  democracy  the 
chief  reason  for  the  misfortunes  and  anomalies  of 
the  times.  "  A  king  given,  an  aristocracy  given," 
wrote  Frederick  Denison  Maurice  in  1852,  "and 
I  can  see  my  way  clearly  to  call  upon  them  to  do 
the  work  which  God  has  laid  upon  them :  to 
repent  of  their  sins,  to  labor  that  the  whole  man- 
hood of  the  country  may  have  a  voice,  that  every 
member  of  Christ's  body  may  be  indeed  a  free  man. 
But  reconstitute  society  upon  the  democratic  basis, 
—  treat  the  sovereign  and  the  aristocracy  as  not 
intended  to  rule  and  guide  the  land,  as  only  hold- 
ing their  commissions  from  us,  —  and  I  anticipate 
nothing  but  a  most  accursed  sacerdotal  rule,  or 
a  military  despotism."  Such  dark  anticipations 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  245 

were  by  no  means  peculiar  to  this  gentle  and  deep- 
souled  man.  Carlyle  and  Raskin,  neither  disci- 
ples nor  masters  of  the  "  Christian  Socialists," 
were  one  with  them  in  their  utter  distrust  of  that 
new  popular  power  which  seemed  invading  the 
world.  A  ship  trying  to  round  Cape  Horn  in  bad 
weather  by  vote  of  the  sailors  instead  of  by  will  of 
the  captain,  a  troop  of  unbridled  horses  kicking 
their  heels  and  scampering  where  they  would,  are 
the  contemptuous  figures  under  which  democracy 
appears  to  Carlyle.  That  individual  folly  multi- 
plied,—  and  the  English  nation  appeared  to  him 
as  "  ten  million  of  men  mostly  fools,"  —  could  re- 
sult in  collective  wisdom  was  an  idea  which  seemed 
to  him  to  carry  its  own  refutation.  No  book,  per- 
haps, had  done  so  much  as  his  "  French  Revolu- 
tion "  to  bring  home  to  the  public  the  breathless 
sense  of  the  invasion  of  the  modern  world  by  the 
People  ;  but  the  revolutionary  drama,  as  conceived 
by  him,  centres  in  retribution  rather  than  in  pro- 
phecy, and  all  the  marvelous  eloquence  and  power 
of  the  book  hail,  as  it  were,  the  breaking  of  a 
thunderstorm  rather  than  the  coming  of  the  dawn. 
Through  all  his  later  books,  recognition  blends 
curiously  with  terror,  and  repudiation  of  the  de- 
mocratic idea  alternates  with  reluctant  welcome 
in  a  way  that  suggests  a  mind  struggling  with  a 
current  which  it  finds  impossible  to  stem,  but  to 
which  it  will  not  yield.  "  Alas,  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic  and  on  that,  Democracy,  we  appre- 
hend, is  forever  impossible."  1  But  again :  "•  Uni- 
1  Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  "  The  Present  Time." 


246       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 


versa!  democracy,  whatever  we  may  think  of  it, 
has  declared  itself  as  an  inevitable  fact  of  the 
days  in  which  we  live."  And  finally,  society  des- 
perately placed  on  the  horns  of  the  dilemma : 
"  How  in  conjunction  with  inevitable  democracy, 
indispensable  sovereignty  is  to  exist ;  certainly  it 
is  the  hugest  question  ever  heretofore  propounded 
to  mankind  !  "  l 

Carlyle's  bitter  scorn  has  its  salutary  gift  for 
us,  if  it  serve  only  to  awaken  a  challenge  and 
a  question  at  the  heart  of  our  too  often  shallow 
optimism.  For  we  Americans  take  the  word 
democracy  lightly  upon  our  lips ;  but  really  to 
believe  and  accept  it,  not  with  the  excitement  of 
the  Fourth  of  July  orator,  but  with  the  ardent, 
solemn  consecration  that  may  mean  sacrifice,  is 
the  most  tremendous  test  of  faith  in  God  and  man, 
and  in  man's  power  to  attain  the  God-like,  that  has 
ever  been  imposed  on  a  bewildered  and  helpless 
humanity.  Belief  in  democracy  is  the  last  demand 
of  idealism.  We  are  not  likely  to  forget  this :  we 
whose  national  Credo  must  be  spoken  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  seething  throngs  of  the  outcasts  of 
Europe.  To  look  our  national  situation  squarely 
in  the  face  and  say  that  the  cure  for  democracy  is 
more  democracy  requires  a  reverential  trust  toward 
humanity  at  large  such  as  only  the  mystic  who 
avoids  men  has  in  the  past  been  able  to  hold  with 
any  degree  of  steadiness.  To  make  such  trust  the 
prevailing  mood  of  the  statesman  who  guides  men 
will  need  more  than  one  generation. 

1  Past  and  Present,  book  iv.  ch.  i.  "  Aristocracies." 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  247 

But  however  one  may  explain  the  position  of 
Carlyle,  whatever  value,  indeed,  one  may  feel  that 
it  still  holds  for  us,  the  inconsistency  of  the  old 
seer  led  him  to  disastrous  conclusions.  Teufels- 
drockli  in  the  wilderness  could  exclaim  with  No- 
valis  :  "  We  touch  Heaven  when  we  lay  our  hands 
upon  a  human  body,"  and  could  meditate  with 
holy  rapture  on  the  sacredness  of  human  nature 
and  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Teufelsdrbckh  in  the 
world,  elbowing,  jostling,  observing  his  brothers, 
found  enthusiasm  less  easy,  and  was  inclined  to 
despise  the  race  very  much  as  Swift  had  done  be- 
fore him.  Long  ago,  Mazzini,  a  man  of  less  pro- 
vincial outlook  and  less  intermittent  idealism  than 
Carlyle,  pointed  out  that  the  great  Scotchman's 
fear  of  democracy  sprang  from  a  profound  distrust 
of  human  nature.  His  contradictory  vibrations 
between  a  mystic  reverence  for  man  and  an  in- 
stinctive contempt  for  men  make  him  interesting 
as  a  figure  of  transition ;  but  they  show  more 
clearly  than  any  other  features  of  his  teaching  that 
his  real  power  lay  rather  in  flashes  of  feeling  than 
in  steady  thought,  and  they  naturally  lead  to  the 
harsh  and  painful  attitude  of  his  later  years.  For 
with  imperative  craving  to  revere,  with  perception 
that  all  which  had  insured  reverence  in  the  past 
was  dying  or  doomed,  with  scant  faith  in  the  pos- 
sibilities of  humanity  at  large,  Carlyle  fell  back  on 
the  demand  for  heroes  ;  and,  when  spiritual  heroes 
seemed  lacking,  took  the  most  obvious  refuge  open 
to  him  and  exalted  mere  force  and  might.  The 
impulse  grew  upon  him,  till  the  man  who  abhorred 


248       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

democracy  fell  into  the  extreme  error  of  democracy 
of  the  crudest  and  basest  type,  and  seemed  through 
the  long  years  of  his  decadence  to  deny  that  very 
sense  for  spiritual  values  which  he  had  done  so 
much  to  reawaken  in  England,  to  accept  with 
no  qualifications  the  aristocracy  of  force,  and  to 
admire  and  seek  one  thing  only:  the  rule  of  the 
strongest. 

Yet  through  all  inconsistencies  and  prejudices, 
Carlyle  had  the  instinct  of  a  prophet.  For  he 
saw  as  clearly  that  democracy  was  inevitable  as  he 
believed  that  it  was  absurd.  The  century  has  jus- 
tified his  prediction,  if  it  has  not  yet  disproved  his 
fears.  Time  passed  on ;  and  the  conviction  that 
democracy  had  come,  and  come  to  stay,  slowly  pos- 
sessed the  European  world.  It  is  instructive  to 
note  the  gradual  change  which  has  led  men  from 
denying  to  deploring,  and  from  deploring  to  inves- 
tigating, the  new  force  and  its  implications. 

With  the  clinging  to  aristocratic  theory  so  per- 
sistent during  the  early  Victorian  period  went 
naturally  enough  a  marked  ignorance  concerning 
the  common  people.  The  literature  of  the  time  is 
distinctly  a  class  literature,  written  by  the  privi- 
leged for  the  privileged.  It  is  fraught  indeed  with 
a  growing  sense  of  social  responsibility,  but  it  has 
no  real  knowledge  of  the  classes  whose  cause  it 
pleads.  Carlyle,  the  son  of  labor,  Ruskin,  the  son 
of  privilege,  are  equally  remote  from  the  working- 
people.  They  write  about  them  with  fervent  sym- 
pathy :  they  wax  eloquent  over  the  dignity  of  the 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  249 

laborer;  but  sympathy  and  eloquence  yield  to 
perplexed  silence  when  evidence  as  to  the  laborer's 
real  thought  or  character  is  needed.  As  a  concrete 
fact,  democracy  consists  of  the  Demos.  Before 
1880,  Demos  was  an  unknown  quantity  to  the  men 
who  discussed  him.  He  represented  a  threatening 
force,  to  be  feared,  to  be  pitied,  to  be  exhorted,  to 
be  reviled,  to  be  glorified,  but  to  be  approached,  — 
never.  Nothing  will  more  clearly  betray  to  the 
future  the  sharp  alienation  of  classes  in  the  Vic- 
torian period  than  the  tone  of  our  literature  of 
reform.  Carlyle  hardly  ever  addressed  the  work- 
ing-classes directly,  as  if  they  too  were  intelligent 
mortals,  open  to  the  appeal  of  books.  Ruskin  did 
try  to  get  into  touch  with  them  ;  and  there  could 
be  no  more  amusing  and  pathetic  illustration  of 
the  utter  ineptitude  of  the  man  of  culture  trying 
to  "  reach  the  masses,"  than  this  earnest  and  high- 
souled  gentleman  gravely  addressing  to  the  British 
workingman  month  by  month  that  beautiful  and 
unintelligible  medley,  "Fors  Clavigera."  Both 
thinkers  suggest  scheme  after  scheme  to  remedy 
the  suffering  of  the  poor ;  the  people  whom  these 
schemes  concern  are  in  their  minds  a  helpless 
throng,  to  be  compassionately  released  from  unjust 
conditions,  and  graciously  and  wisely  provided  for, 
—  by  whom  ?  The  answer  halts  ;  and  a  spirit  of 
bewildered  discouragement  pervades  the  most  heart- 
felt pleas  for  social  regeneration.  One  hope,  one 
suggestion  of  help,  never  occurs,  —  that  the  people 
should  work  out  in  any  degree  their  own  deliver- 
ance. The  idea  that  the  initiative  to  social  salva- 


250       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR   FATHERS 

tion  should  spring  from  the  working-classes,  an  idea 
already  clearly  held  by  Mazzini,  already  the  life  of 
our  great  Lincoln,  was  as  yet  contemplated,  or  at 
least  voiced,  by  no  Englishman  of  imagination. 

Men  of  observation  were  as  ignorant  as  men 
of  theory  in  regard  to  the  real  character  of  the 
wage  -  earning  class,  and  to  the  forces  stirring 
among  them.  In  the  Victorian  novel  before  1880, 
the  close  study  of  the  personal  types  produced  by 
our  modern  industrial  system  —  a  study  thrilling 
in  dramatic  interest,  vast  in  significance,  direct  in 
bearing  upon  social  theories  —  had  hardly  begun. 
The  few  attempts  which  fiction  made  to  draw  near 
to  the  working-people  were  usually  conspicuous 
failures.  Several  well-known  stories  of  the  period 
tried  to  describe  a  representative  labor-man  :  "  Sy- 
bil," "  Hard  Times,"  "  Alton  Locke,"  and  "  Felix 
Holt."  It  is  difficult  to  say  which  portrait  is  most 
absurd,  though  probably  the  palm  belongs  to  Dis- 
raeli's preposterous  Gerard,  with  his  grandiloquent 
speech  and  his  hidden  descent  from  a  line  of  earls. 
The  camel  evolved  from  the  inner  consciousness 
of  the  Teuton  is  no  further  removed  from  fact 
than  are  all  these  high-toned  and  poetic  gentlemen, 
with  their  excellent  English  and  delicate  sentiments, 
from  the  labor  leader  de  facto.  Dickens,  for  all 
his  rough  workmanship,  is  here  as  always  nearer 
than  any  other  novelist  of  transition  to  the  true 
nature  of  the  people,  and  one  may  still  feel,  in 
reading  the  story  of  Stephen  Blackpool,  the  pathos 
and  the  power  of  truth.  Yet  the  success  here  is 
due  rather  to  intuition  than  to  knowledge,  for  in 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  251 

the  same  book  the  ridiculous  studies  of  the  Agitator 
and  of  the  factory  hands  in  general  show  that 
Dickens'  familiarity  failed,  though  his  sympathy 
continued,  when  he  turned  from  the  trading  to  the 
industrial  classes.  Occasionally  the  minor  fiction 
of  the  time  tries  to  present  phases  of  industrial 
life ;  but  none  of  it  can  be  said  to  impart  that 
sense  of  assured  fact  which  we  feel  as  we  listen  to 
the  talk  at  the  Hall  Farm  or  at  Hardy's  sheep- 
shearing.  With  all  its  would-be  realism,  modern 
fiction  has  till  lately  stopped  short  of  pictures  of 
the  working-people  ;  indeed,  so  wide  was  the  social 
gulf  that  men  of  the  same  nation  and  language 
tried  in  vain  to  look  across  it  into  each  other's 
eyes. 

In  truth,  the  modern  proletariat  class  had  sprung 
into  existence  so  rapidly  that  neither  art  nor 
thought  could  at  once  realize  its  presence.  Even 
while  the  imagination  was  adjusting  itself  to  the 
rise  of  the  middle  class  supplanting  the  old  aris- 
tocracy, the  new  power  was  arriving  on  the  scene. 
Through  the  Victorian  period  a  new  cleavage  of 
classes  is  arriving,  is  accomplished.  The  swift 
change  in  emphasis  comes  out  with  startling  clear- 
ness if  we  turn  from  Carlyle,  Ruskin,  and  the 
modern  novel  to  the  work  of  Arnold  ;  for  Arnold 
was  the  first  man  to  accept  society  exactly  as  it 
was.  Carlyle  signaled  the  rise  into  power  of  the 
manufacturing  class,  yet  he  viewed  this  class  from 
a  distance.  It  was  a  new  force,  ominous  but  in 
the  main  unknown ;  and  the  full  fervor  of  his 
irony  was  aimed  at  that  old  aristocracy  with  whom 


252       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

his  hopes  lingered  still.  In  the  sparkling  wit  of 
Arnold,  the  satiric  accent  has  changed.  It  falls 
clear  and  scathing  on  the  middle  class.  His  satire, 
attacking  the  Barbarians,  takes  no  longer  the  form 
of  invective  seeking  to  arouse,  but  the  form  of 
ridicule  seeking  to  discredit.  Suavely  but  deci- 
sively we  are  bidden  to  turn  our  thoughts  from 
these  interesting  but  fossil  phenomena  to  the  class 
which  holds  the  present  in  its  keeping.  This  is 
the  class  of  the  Philistines ;  and  with  the  Philis- 
tines Arnold's  most  serious,  intimate,  and  mem- 
orable social  studies  are  concerned.  Yet  he  is  per- 
fectly well  aware  of  the  advent  of  another  power. 
As  early  as  1870,  he  showed  with  exquisite  lucidity 
that  the  present  of  Carlyle,  so  startling  in  novelty 
when  the  old  sage  began  to  write,  was  already  be- 
coming superseded,  that  the  reign  of  the  middle 
class  was  drawing  to  an  end,  and  that  the  way  was 
opening  to  that  new  force  of  the  people,  whom 
Carlyle  had  only  discerned  in  the  distance,  inco- 
herent, undefined,  obscured  by  the  commanding 
figures  of  the  bourgeoisie. 

This  force  Arnold  does  not  understand  any 
better  than  his  predecessors.  He  can  find  for  it 
no  more  distinctive  name  than  "  Populace,"  and  he 
speaks  of  it  with  a  distant,  puzzled  air,  aware 
chiefly  that  certain  of  its  obvious  attributes  jar 
sadly  on  his  nerves.  There  is  a  note  of  irritability 
in  his  recognition  of  the  advent  of  this  new  Person- 
age, rough,  lawless,  noisy,  upon  the  world's  stage. 
"  His  appearance  is  really  distressing,"  sighs  Ar- 
nold, "  because  too  many  cooks  spoil  the  broth." 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  253 

We  are  far  indeed  from  Lincoln's  simple,  reverent 
trust  in  the  "  plain  people."  But  he  sees  with  en- 
tire clearness  that  the  new-comer  is  here  to  stay. 
The  liberalism  of  Macaulay  has  had  its  day,  and 
has  passed  from  the  front  to  the  rear  of  progress. 
Against  this  liberalism,  Arnold  tells  us,  Newman, 
that  chivalrous  Knight  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  had  run 
his  heroic  tilt  in  1840,  and  had  suffered  sad  de- 
feat :  —  "  But  what  was  it,  this  Liberalism,  as  Dr. 
Newman  saw  it,  and  as  it  finally  broke  the  Oxfard 
Movement  ?  It  was  the  great  middle-class  liberal- 
ism, which  had  for  the  cardinal  points  of  its  belief 
the  Reform  Bill  of  1832  and  local  self-govern- 
ment in  politics  ;  in  the  social  sphere,  free  trade, 
unrestricted  competition,  and  the  making  of  large 
industrial  fortunes ;  in  the  religious  sphere,  the 
dissidence  of  dissent,  and  the  Protestantism  of  the 
Protestant  religion.  .  .  .  And  where  is  this  great 
force  of  Philistinism  now  ?  It  is  thrust  into  the 
second  rank,  it  is  become  a  power  of  yesterday,  it 
has  lost  the  future.  A  new  power  has  suddenly 
appeared.  ...  I  have  said  that  the  new  and  more 
democratic  force  which  is  now  superseding  our 
old  middle-class  liberalism  cannot  yet  be  rightly 
judged."  ]  "  The  middle  classes,  remaining  as 
they  are  now,  with  their  narrow,  harsh,  and  unat- 
tractive spirit  and  culture,  will  almost  certainly 
fail  to  mould  or  to  assimilate  the  masses  below 
them,  whose  sympathies  are  at  the  present  moment 
actually  wider  and  more  liberal  than  theirs.  They 
arrive,  these  masses,  eager  to  enter  into  possession 
1  Culture  and  Anarchy,  ch.  i.  "  Sweetness  and  Light." 


254       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

of  the  world,  to  gain  a  more  vivid  sense  of  their 
own  life  and  activity."  l  "  Democracy  is  trying  to 
affirm  its  own  essence ;  to  live,  to  enjoy,  to  possess 
the  world,  as  aristocracy  has  tried,  and  successfully 
tried,  before  it."  2 

The  apostle  of  culture  as  the  apostle  of  demo- 
cracy is  assuredly  a  spectacle  to  arouse  surprise. 
No  author  of  the  Victorian  era  was  perhaps  natu- 
rally so  devoid  of  democratic  instincts.  The  doc- 
trine of  the  remnant  and  the  alien  pervades  his 
thought ;  his  books  are  the  shibboleth  of  the  few, 
and  sealed  to  the  Philistines  ;  his  sympathies  are 
to  a  very  slight  degree  with  the  people.  If  such 
a  man  accepts  the  cause  of  democracy  and  pleads 
it,  he  is  impelled  by  no  sentimental  motives,  but 
by  the  irresistible  movement  of  the  times,  and  by 
a  conviction  that  through  democracy  alone  can  a 
remedy  be  found,  not  for  the  sufferings  of  one  class 
only,  but  for  the  general  disorder  which  makes 
impossible  private  peace,  freedom,  or  joy. 

Intensely  impressed  by  the  vulgarity,  insincerity, 
and  anarchy  which  mark  our  present  condition; 
intensely  eager  for  a  civilization  more  harmonious 
and  ennobling,  Arnold  feels  that  such  can  be  real- 
ized only  by  accepting  and  enlarging  and  uplifting 
the  democratic  ideal.  First  among  modern  Eng- 
lish writers  he  clearly  sees  the  great  task  that  lies 
before  the  modern  world :  the  spiritualizing  of  that 
mighty  democracy  which  is  our  fate  and  our  future, 
whether  we  will  or  no.  "  The  difficulty  for  demo- 
cracy is  how  to  find  and  keep  high  ideals.  The 
1  Essay  on  Democracy.  -  Ibid. 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  255 

individuals  who  compose  it  are,  the  bulk  of  them, 
persons  who  need  to  follow  an  ideal,  not  to  set 
one ;  and  one  ideal  of  greatness,  high  feeling  and 
fine  culture,  which  an  aristocracy  once  supplied  to 
them,  they  lose  by  the  very  fact  of  ceasing  to  be 
a  lower  order  and  becoming  a  democracy.  Our 
society  is  probably  destined  to  become  much  more 
democratic ;  who  or  what  will  give  a  high  tone  to 
the  nation  then  ?  This  is  the  grave  question." l 

It  is  a  question  worth  posing,  even  if  no  answer 
were  forthcoming ;  for  simply  to  ask  it  is  a  step 
in  advance.  Arnold's  reply,  for  a  reply  he  offers, 
leaves  the  beaten  track.  He  turns  aside  from  all 
discussion  of  that  aspect  of  democracy  which  is 
most  constantly  considered,  its  political  relations 
and  machinery  ;  his  daring  and  audacious  thought 
has  had  to  wait  twenty  years  for  a  response.  This 
thought  is  already  present,  in  embryo,  in  "  Culture 
and  Anarchy ; "  but  to  find  its  fullest  and  ripest 
expression,  we  must  turn  to  the  two  brilliant  es- 
says on  "  Equality  "  and  "  Democracy,"  in  which 
the  maturest  views  and  some  of  the  most  notable 
writing  of  Arnold  are  to  be  found. 

Arnold  had  something  very  definite  to  say  to  his 
generation  ;  and  he  said  it  with  a  composure  and 
self-mastery  which  could  bide  their  time,  and  an  ex- 
plicitness  which  made  misunderstanding  impossible. 
And  this  was  his  message :  that  the  cure  for  our 
materialized  and  mechanical  democracy  was  not  in 
the  retrenchment  or  extension  of  the  suffrage,  not 
in  the  reinstatement  of  the  aristocracy,  not  in  any 

1  Essay  on  Democracy. 


256       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

political,  philanthropic,  nor  even  educational  mea- 
sures, but  in  the  application  of  the  democratic 
principle  to  our  practical  social  conditions,  by 
means  of  the  establishment  of  a  fuller  degree  of 
social  equality.  "  Political  freedom  may  very  well 
be  established  by  aristocratic  founders.  .  .  .  Social 
freedom,  —  equality,  —  that  is  rather  the  field  of 
the  conquest  of  democracies."  1 

"  Culture,"  Arnold  had  said  in  "  Culture  and 
Anarchy," — "  culture  seeks  to  do  away  with  classes; 
to  make  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  known 
in  the  world  current  everywhere  ;  to  make  all  men 
live  in  an  atmosphere  of  sweetness  and  light,  where 
they  may  use  ideas,  as  it  uses  them  itself,  freely,  — 
nourished  and  not  bound  by  them.  This  is  the 
social  idea  ;  and  the  men  of  culture  are  the  true 
apostles  of  equality." 2  This  passage  may  sound 
like  the  unpractical  hallucination  or  the  vague 
theory  of  the  dreamer ;  but  we  have  only  to  turn 
to  the  later  essays  to  see  how  very  practical,  real, 
and  definite  a  thing  Arnold  meant  when  he  said 
of  culture,  "  It  seeks  to  do  away  with  classes." 
For  from  first  to  last,  these  essays  have  one  delib- 
erate trend  :  to  condemn  the  English  social  system, 
with  its  wide  discrepancies  in  property  and  rank, 
and  to  plead  that  a  fair  degree  of  equality  in 
material  possessions  is  necessaiy  to  that  free  play 
of  the  higher  forces  through  society  which  we 
must  all  supremely  desire.  "  Can  it  be  denied," 
he  writes,  "  that  a  certain  approach  to  equality,  at 
any  rate  a  certain  reduction  of  signal  inequalities, 

1  Essay  on  Democracy.  2  Culture  and  Anarchy,  ch.  i. 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  257 

is  a  natural,  instinctive  demand  of  that  impulse 
which  drives  society  as  a  whole,  —  no  longer  indi- 
viduals and  limited  classes  only,  but  the  mass  of  a 
community,  ...  to  develop  itself  with  the  utmost 
possible  fullness  and  freedom  ?  Can  it  be  denied 
that  to  live  in  a  society  of  equals  tends  in  general 
to  make  a  man's  spirits  expand,  and  his  faculties 
work  easily  and  actively  ;  while  to  live  in  a  society 
of  superiors,  although  it  may  occasionally  be  a  very 
good  discipline,  yet  in  general  tends  to  tame  the 
spirits,  and  to  make  the  play  of  the  faculties  less 
secure  and  active  ?  "  x  By  illustrations  drawn  from 
ancient  Athens  and  modern  France,  he  tries, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  to  show  that  nations  attain  a 
high  degree  of  civilization  just  in  proportion  to 
the  extent  to  which  they  foster  equality  in  posses- 
sions ;  and  he  sums  up  his  thought  in  an  old  phrase 
with  a  new  addition :  "  Our  inequality  material- 
izes our  upper  class,  vulgarizes  our  middle  class, 
brutalizes  our  lower  class,"  and  in  one  final,  terse, 
pregnant  sentence  :  "  We  owe  our  uncivilizeduess 
to  our  inequality."  2 

Arnold  is  the  first  Victorian  writer  of  soberness 
and  literary  standing  to  hold  any  such  position. 
With  one  accord,  his  predecessors  had  believed 
that  distinctions  of  rank  were  essential  to  noble 
civilization,  and  that  a  democracy  meant  a  dead 
level  of  vulgarity.  One  may  agree  or  not  with  the 
paradoxical  ground  he  occupies ;  one  can  at  least 
be  sure  that  he  held  it  from  no  philanthropic 
motive,  and  from  no  sentimental  desire  to  share 

1  Essay  on  Democracy.  2  JSssai,  on  Equality. 


258       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

material  goods  per  se.     He  wished  for  equality  — 
a  real,  solid,  material  equality,  let  us  repeat,  no 
mere  figment  such  as  is  offered  by  the  ballot  — 
because  he  believed,  honestly  and  as  the  result  of 
his  best  thought,  that  only  in  such  a  soil  could  the 
graces  of  life  and  the  noblest  joys  of  life  flourish. 

This  clear-cut  position  of  Arnold's  —  a  position 
as  radical  in  its  way  as  a  modern  labor-agitator 
could  desire  —  came  at  a  significant  point.  It 
marked  the  climax  of  a  long  line  of  social  thought, 
and  it  pointed  the  view  toward  the  future.  The 
period  that  succeeded  Arnold  was  to  be  full  of 
eager  discussion,  gathering  largely  around  this  very 

1  matter.  Economic  equality  was  to  be  demanded 
more  vigorously  than  ever  before ;  but  chiefly  by 
men  whose  hearts  throbbed  at  the  sight  of  the  mis- 
ery of  the  poor,  and  who  longed  for  readjustments 
of  material  possessions  to  relieve  material  distress. 
Them  the  children  of  sweetness  and  light  were  to 
answer  by  many  voices,  insistent,  clamorous.  They 
were  to  assert  with  frequency,  if  not  with  una- 
nimity, that  equality  would  destroy  all  incentive 
toward  higher  social  good  ;  that  the  material  de- 
privations of  the  majority  were  the  necessary  and 
just  price  of  the  r0mance^*color,  vigor,  and  charm 
which  only  inequalities  could  preserve ;  that  cul- 
ture was  the  prerogative  of  an  ^aristocracy ;  and 
that  the  invasion  of  the  multitudes  intq  conscious 
self-expression  and  self-government  was  the  death- 
signal  to  learning  and  the  arts.  And  while  they 
have  been  talking,  the  words  of  their  acknowledged 
leader  abide  at  the  threshold  of  the  era,  reiterating 


TOWARD  DEMOCRACY  259 

with  calm  assurance  :  "  The  men  of  culture  are  the 
chief  apostles  of  equality." 

Arnold's  later  writings  show  more  and  more 
strongly  his  belief  that  to  the  people,  as  full  demo- 
cracy understands  the  term,  belongs  the  future. 
In  one  of  his  last  essays,  "  Ecce,  Convertimur  ad 
Gentes,"  he  expresses  his  whole  mind.  The  essay 
is  an  address  delivered  to  the  Ipswich  Working- 
men's  College,  and  the  title  speaks  for  itself. 
Weary  of  pleading  with  the  middle  class,  hopeless 
of  the  aristocracy,  Arnold  turned  to  the  Gentiles, 
to  the  workers.  "  Do  not  be  affronted  at  being 
compared  to  the  Gentiles,"  he  says  to  them.  "  The 
Gentiles  were  the  human  race,  the  Gentiles  were 
the  future."  One  must  be  familiar  with  the  tone 
of  contemporary  literature  fully  to  appreciate  the 
almost  prophetic  quality  of  the  essay.  For  it  seeks 
to  awaken  in  the  working-people  the  initiative  im- 
pulse, not  only  to  move  toward  their  own  salvation, 
but  also  to  become  an  active  force  in  realizing  the 
common  national  good.  The  exact  plea  does  not 
matter.  The  significant  thing  is  that  the  appeal 
should  be  made  at  all,  and  that  to  the  coolest  and 
most  far-sighted  critic  of  our  times  should  have 
come  the  thought  that  the  working-people  might 
be  an  instrument  through  whom  the  nobler  collec- 
tive life  of  society  should  be  realized. 

"  Ecce,  convertimur  ad  gentes."  It  must  have 
seemed  to  Arnold  the  counsel  of  despair :  but  it 
was  to  be  a  watchword  of  the  next  generation.  For 
the  time  came  when  democratic  theories,  despite  all 
withholdings  and  misgivings,  prevailed.  Their 


260       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

terror  was  to  be  mitigated  though  not  destroyed, 
and  their  inspiration  set  free,  by  the  correlative 
development  of  practical  fellowship  between  classes, 
and  of  an  heroic  faith  in  the  power  of  society  to 
shape  its  life  as  it  would. 


CHAPTER  XII 

TOWARD   AUTHORITY 

AUTHORITY  and  democracy  are  two  words  which 
the  early  nineteenth  century  would  have  found 
hard  to  couple.  To  the  common  thought,  demo-  ' 
cracy  meant  a  society  swayed  purely  by  popular 
impulse  and  the  instinct  of  personal  liberty.  This 
was  natural.  The  gigantic  egotism  of  the  Napo- 
leonic wars  and  of  Byronic  poetry  were  early 
results  of  the  same  impulse,  in  the  spheres  of  fact 
and  fancy.  Other  results  were  the  immense  in- 
dustrial expansion,  the  consequent  rap^id  rise  of  a 
self-made  bourgeoisie  to  power,  and  the  varying 
schools  of  speculative  thought  that  swiftly  appeared. 

Yet  a  second  impulse  flowed  from  the  mighty 
source  of  the  young  democracy :  the  social  impulse 
for  the  common  life  and  the  common  duty.  In 
1848,  this  impulse  measured  itself  against  individu- 
alism, and  fled,  routed.  Its  time  had  not  come,  for 
individualism  had  not  spent  its  force.  Drama,  poe- 
try, novel,  essay,  continued  after  brief  interruption 
the  claim  and  quest  for  personal  self-realization, 
flung  a  challenge  at  conventions  in  the  name  of 
private  freedom,  or  sought,  as  the  one  worthy  aim 
of  art,  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  temperament  and 
personality.  Free  competition  continued  to  gov- 


262       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

era  the  industrial  system.  The  very  centre  of  the 
individualist  position  was  England,  where  John 
Bull  took  with  especial  kindliness  to  the  assertion 
of  his  own  rights. 

It  was,  then,  no  wonder  that  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
hated  democracy  as  they  saw  it.  From  self-asser- 
tion and  from  mob-law  they  turned  away  their  eyes. 
"  Liberty,"  cries  Carlyle,  "  requires  new  defini- 
tions." 1  "  All  freedom  is  error,"  says  Ruskin. 
"  You  hear  every  day  greater  numbers  of  foolish 
people  speaking  about  liberty  as  if  it  were  such  an 
honorable  thing :  so  far  from  being  that,  it  is  on 
the  whole  and  in  the  broadest  sense  dishonorable, 
and  an  attribute  of  the  lower  creatures.  No  human 
being,  however  great  and  powerful,  was  ever  so  free 
as  a  fish.  .  .  .  You  will  find,  on  fairly  thinking 
of  it,  that  it  is  his  Restraint  which  is  honorable 
to  man,  not  his  Liberty.  .  .  .  The  sun  has  no 
liberty,  a  dead  leaf  has  much.  The  dust  of  which 
you  are  formed  has  no  liberty.  Its  liberty  will 
come  —  with  its  corruption."  2 

The  reaction  from  individualism  allied  itself  in 
both  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  with  a  strong  attraction 
for  the  feudal  past.  But  the  time  was  to  come 
when  the  desire  for  authority  should  look  no  longer 
to  the  past,  but  to  the  future  for  its  f ulfillment : 
when  democracy  and  authority  should  be  recognized 
as  friends,  not  foes.  Matthew  Arnold  was  perhaps 
one  of  the  first  English  writers  to  abandon  the  old 
connections,  and  to  combine  the  outcry  against 

1  Past  and  Present,  book  iii.  ch.  xiii. 

2  The  Two  Paths. 


TOWARD  AUTHORITY  263 

individualism  with  a  warm  enthusiasm,  not  for  de- 
mocracy as  it  is,  but  for  democracy  as  it  may  be. 
He  burned  no  incense  on  the  altar  of  the  past : 
with  a  wave  of  his  hauds  he  dismissed  the  British 
aristocracy  and  all  their  associations,  and  turned 
cheerfully  to  face  the  coming  age.  Yet  his  de-  \ 
mand  for  authority  rings  clearer  than  that  of  his 
predecessors.  "  Doing  as  one  likes,"  that  favorite 
British  pastime,  is  at  once  the  bane  of  his  thought 
and  the  butt  of  his  laughter ;  and  the  idea  that  the 
"  assertion  of  personal  liberty  "  is  a  worthy  social 
aim  is  no  less  distasteful  to  him  than  the  eccentrici- 
ties of  private  English  judgment  in  literary  affairs. 
"  How,  in  conjunction  with  inevitable  democracy, 
indispensable  sovereignty  is  to  exist :  "  Carlyle's 
question  gains  an  ever  new  emphasis  as  the  century 
grows  older.  The  search  for  authority  pervades 
the  best  social  teaching  of  the  Victorian  age.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  men  have  been  reverting 
from  the  revolutionary  idea  of  freedom,  which  re- 
gards it  as  the  natural  birthright  of  humanity  and 
of  each  individual,  to  the  Christian  ideal,  so  mag- 
nificently set  forth  in  Dante's  "  Divina  Commedia," 
which  views  it  as  the  great  gift,  to  be  won,  either 
by  society  or  by  the  man,  only  as  the  result  of  long 
discipline  and  willing  acceptance  of  righteous  law. 
What  this  law  may  be,  in  social  and  industrial 
relations,  thinkers  gradually  bent  their  best  efforts 
to  discover.  The  effort  continues  still. 

For  final  results  we  must  not  look  to  the  social 

/ 

thought  of  our  fathers,  or  we  shall  be  disappointed. 
Probably  no  one  to-day  could  find  their  theories 


264       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

wholly  satisfactory.  We  are  living  very  fast :  in 
the  period  before  1880,  men  were  feeling  their  way 
uncertainly  toward  new  forms  and  new  ideals,  and 
social  theories  were  continually  shifting.  Carlyle 
and  Arnold  were  both  in  one  sense  leaders  of  indi- 
vidualistic thought,  and  expressed  the  very  tenden- 
cies that  they  repudiated:  for  they  were  sons  as 
well  as  rebels  in  their  relation  to  their  age.  That 
which  they  desired,  whether  consciously  or  not,  was 
not  the  victory  of  any  one  social  principle,  any  con- 
sistent scheme  or  plan.  It  was  a  resultant  of  many 
principles,  an  expression  of  a  new  social  order  in 
vital  relation  to  the  entire  past  of  which  it  was  the 
product.  No  wonder  that  their  ideas  were  tentative, 
contradictory,  and  inconsistent;  no  wonder  that 
they  are  largely  superseded  :  for  such  an  order,  life 
must  reveal,  not  thought  invent. 

"  Liberty  requires  new  definitions."  It  became 
gradually  evident  that  the  ballot,  left  to  itself,  did 
not  secure  liberty.  It  became  evident  that  if  col- 
lective freedom,  if  social  health,  were  to  be  achieved, 
government  must  be  something  more  than  a  series 
of  checks,  imposed  to  guard  the  individual  from 
interference.  It  became  evident  that  liberty,  if  the 
great  word  were  to  mean  an  harmonious  expression 
of  the  full  powers  of  the  social  whole,  must  carry 
with  it  much  positive  law  :  not  only  law  prohibitory 
and  punitive,  but  law  which  means  guidance.  The 
growing  desire  for  authority  which  plays  through 
our  literature  mingles  in  a  baffling  way  with  a  sense 
that  the  old  forms  of  authority  vested  in  a  class  or 
a  man  are  effete ;  contempt  and  indifference  toward 


TOWARD  AUTHORITY  265 

existing  political  machinery  meet  curiously  an  im- 
pulse to  lay  fresh  emphasis  on  the  possibilities  of 
political  action ;  and  the  converging  lines  of  nearly 
all  modern  social  speculation  move  toward  a  new 
insistence  on  the  opportunity,  the  duty,  the  respon- 
sibility, of  the  state. 

Carlyle  did  not  solve  his  own  great  questions, 
nor  meet  his  own  demands ;  nor  indeed  have  we 
yet  found  the  solution.  But  he  did  some  strong 
and  useful  thinking  toward  solution,  and  his  very 
inconsistencies  are  helpful.  The  sense  for  the 
social  organism  that  pulses  through  his  writings 
from  the  first  implies  a  conception  of  the  state 
quite  different  either  from  the  closely  but  mechan- 
ically articulated  system  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or 
from  the  loose  modern  anarchy  of  contending  and 
balancing  forces.  His  state,  or  governing  power, 
was  to  be  in  vital  relation  to  the  entire  life  of  his 
citizens :  was  to  provide  for  their  welfare,  not  by 
establishing  a  free  field  and  no  favor  in  the  social 
and  industrial  struggle,  but  by  positive  oversight 
and  enactment.  Deeply  troubled  by  the  condition 
of  the  working-classes,  it  was  natural  that  Carlyle 
felt  with  peculiar  force  the  responsibility  of  gov- 
ernment toward  these  classes,  and  that  whenever 
he  discusses  the  function  of  the  state  in  detail,  his 
emphatic  demand  was  that  industrial  affairs  should 
pass  under  public  control.  This  demand  he  urged 
with  increasing  stress  during  all  the  writings  of  his 
prime.  The  detailed  social  suggestions  of  "  Past 
and  Present "  —  emigration,  profit-sharing,  free  edu- 
cation —  are  all  admirable  :  if  not  yet  all  adopted, 


266       THE  ENGLAND   OF  OUR  FATHERS 

they  have  at  least  become  so  familiar  to  our  ears 
that  we  are  surprised  to  hear  the  timidity  with 
which  Carlyle  puts  them  forth.  But  the  great  idea 
which  pervades  the  book,  and  in  which  we  see  that 
Carlyle  has  a  faith  almost  desperately  strong,  is  the 
Organization  of  Labor. 

We  must  not  be  misled  by  the  modern  sound 
of  this  phrase  into  supposing  that  Carlyle  meant 
what  we  should  mean  to-day.  That  Labor  should 
organize  itself,  he  never  dreamed;  for  he  lacked 
completely  our  conception  of  Labor  as  an  intelligent 
force.  But  his  hatred  of  competition  led  him  to 
feel  his  way  toward  some  regulating  principle  which 
should  avoid  the  cruelty  and  waste  prevalent  under 
the  present  system :  some  "  organization  "  which 
should  make  for  economy  and  justice.  And  first  he 
turned  to  his  "  Captains  of  Industry,"  and  dreamed 
that  some  vast,  voluntary,  cooperative  movement 
should  supersede  competitive  individualism,  and 
that  the  employing  class  should  become  sufficiently 
inspired  by  intelligence  and  brotherliness  to  achieve 
this  end.  The  power  of  Carlyle's  thought,  as  well 
as  the  slowness  of  social  advance,  is  illustrated  by 
the  fact  that  people  to-day  are  still  discussing  the 
same  position.  Carlyle  himself  seems  to  have  turned 
away  from  it  before  long ;  at  least,  the  thought  of 
a  righteous  government  and  its  duties  haunts  him 
more  and  more  persistently,  and  in  what  is  perhaps 
the  most  striking  and  forcible  of  all  his  social 
writings,  the  pamphlet  on  "  The  Present  Time," 
published  in  1850,  we  find  that  Labor  is  to  be 
organized,  no  longer  by  the  captains  of  industry, 


TOWARD  AUTHORITY  267 

but  by  the  state.  The  supposed  speech  of  the 
Prime  Minister  of  England,  which  concludes  this 
tract,  is  significant,  not  only  for  its  eloquence,  — 
it  is  one  of  the  strongest  bits  of  writing  in  Carlyle's 
work,  —  but  for  its  far-sightedness.  One  finds  it 
curious  to  note  Carlyle's  evident  sense  of  extreme 
audacity  in  broaching  propositions  which,  though 
not  yet  adopted,  have  become  unfortunately  hack- 
neyed by  repetition.  Interrupted  and  finally  hissed 
down,  the  Prime  Minister  yet  manages,  after  piti- 
fully reviewing  the  condition  of  the  laborers,  to 
propose  his  remedies  :  — 

"  Industrial  Regiments  —  (Here  numerous  per- 
sons, with  big  wigs  many  of  them,  and  austere 
aspect,  whom  I  take  to  be  Professors  of  the  Dis- 
mal Science,  start  up  in  an  agitated,  vehement 
manner :  but  the  Premier  resolutely  beckons  them 
down  again.)  Regiments  not  to  fight  the  French 
or  others,  who  are  peaceable  enough  toward  us ; 
but  to  fight  the  Bogs  and  Wildernesses  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  to  chain  the  Devils  of  the  Pit 
which  are  walking  too  openly  among  us. 

"  Work  for  you  ?  Work,  surely,  is  not  quite  un- 
discoverable,  in  an  earth  so  wide  as  ours,  if  we  will 
take  the  right  methods  for  it !  ...  I  already  raise 
near  upon  Ten  Millions,  for  feeding  you  in  idleness, 
my  nomadic  friends :  work,  under  due  regulations, 
I  might  really  try  to  get  of  (here  arises  indescrib- 
able uproar,  no  longer  repressible,  from  all  manner 
of  Economists,  Emancipationists,  Constitutional- 
ists, and  miscellaneous  Professors  of  the  Dismal 
Science,  pretty  numerously  scattered  about :  and 


268       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

cries  of '  Private  Enterprise,'  *  Rights  of  Capital,' 
4  Voluntary  Principle?  '  Doctrines  of  the  British 
Constitution?  swollen  by  the  general  assenting  hum 
of  all  the  world,  quite  drown  the  Chief  Minister  for 
a  while.  He,  with  invincible  resolution,  persists  : 
obtains  hearing  agoing 

"  Respectable  Professors  of  the  Dismal  Science, 
soft  you  a  little.  Alas,  I  know  what  you  would 
say.  For  my  sins,  I  have  read  much  in  those  in- 
imitable volumes  of  yours :  really,  I  should  think, 
some  barrowfuls  of  them  in  my  time,  and,  in  these 
last  forty  years  of  theory  and  practice,  have  pretty 
well  seized  what  of  divine  message  you  were  sent 
with  to  me.  Perhaps  as  small  a  message,  give  me 
leave  to  say,  as  ever  there  was  such  a  noise  made 
about  before.  Trust  me  I'  have  not  forgotten  it, 
shall  never  forget  it.  Those  Laws  of  the  Shop-till 
are  indisputable  to  me :  and  practically  useful  in 
certain  departments  of  the  Universe,  as  the  multi- 
plication-table itself.  Once  I  even  tried  to  sail 
through  the  Immensities  with  them,  and  to  front 
the  big  coming  Eternities  with  them,  but  I  found 
it  would  not  do.  As  the  Supreme  Rule  of  States- 
manship, or  Government  of  Men,  since  this  Uni- 
verse is  not  wholly  a  Shop,  —  no.  .  .  .  Do  not  you 
interrupt  me,  but  try  to  understand  and  help  me ! 

"  —  Work,  was  I  saying  ?  My  indigent,  unguided 
friends,  I  should  think  some  work  might  be  dis- 
coverable for  you.  Enlist,  stand  drill ;  become, 
from  a  nomadic  Banditti  of  Idleness,  Soldiers  of 
Industry!"1 

1  Latter  Day  Pamphlets,  "  The  Present  Time.'" 


TOWARD  AUTHORITY  269 

State  employment  of  the  Unemployed  !  Carlyle's 
scheme  has  a  strangely  modern  sound.  But  after 
all,  the  fate  of  any  one  who  urges  it  to-day  is  not 
unlike  that  of  his  Premier.  For  the  opposition  to 
this  unlucky  man  swelled  higher  and  higher ;  and 
no  sooner  had  he  at  last  uttered  the  ominous  words, 
"  organization  of  labor,"  than  he  was  "  '  left  speak- 
ing,' says  our  reporter." 

Carlyle  was  vigorously  convinced  that  some  form 
of  public  authority  must  intervene  to  educe  order 
out  of  our  industrial  chaos :  but  concerning  details 
of  procedure,  he  was  wisely  reticent.  Ruskin  al- 
lowed his  imagination  freer  play.  The  most  prac- 
tical of  our  writers  in  counsel  to  the  individual,  he 
was  the  most  inveterate  dreamer  in  weaving  social 
schemes.  Nourished  on  Plato,  More,  and  Milton, 
with  the  additional  misfortune  of  being  a  poet,  he 
constructed  in  his  mind  an  ideal  state  perfect  to 
the  last  detail.  It  was  to  shape  at  every  point  the 
moral  and  intellectual  life  of  its  children.  His 
lovely  fantasies  should  not  be  scouted :  they  should 
take  their  place  with  those  literary  Utopias,  from 
More  to  William  Morris,  which  may  well  refresh 
the  prosaic  generations,  —  dreams,  without  which 
the  world  would  be  poor  indeed.  It  is  not  unpleas- 
ing  to  an  imaginative  person  to  find  schemes  for 
bachelors  and  rosieres,  and  their  marriage-proces- 
sions, blending  with  suggestions  for  a  progressive 
income-tax  and  a  maximum  limit  to  the  wealth  of 
the  rich.  A  mournful  and  lovable  Don  Quixote, 
his  feudal  armor  capped  with  the  "  bonnet  rouge," 
Ruskin  called  himself,  in  sheer  bewilderment,  both 


270       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

Tory  and  Communist.  Yet  the  simple  principle  of 
which  he  found  the  application  so  perplexing  is 
all  in  words  far  more  easily  understood  by  us  than 
by  his  first  hearers :  "  Government  and  coopera- 
tion are  in  all  things  the  law  of  life :  anarchy  and 
competition,  the  law  of  death."  1 

But  it  is  Arnold  the  radical  who  pleads  even 
more  insistently  than  Carlyle  or  Ruskin  the  con- 
servative, for  the  extension  of  state  activity  in  Eng- 
land. Intellectual  individualist  though  he  was,  and 
inveterate  critic  of  English  politics  and  parties,  he 
repeatedly  avowed  his  final  aim  without  blenching. 
"  I  propose  to  submit  to  those  who  have  been 
accustomed  to  regard  all  State-action  with  jealousy, 
some  reasons  for  thinking  that  the  circumstances 
which  once  made  that  jealousy  prudent  and  natural 
have  undergone  an  essential  change.  I  desire  to 
lead  them  to  consider  with  me  whether,  in  the  pre- 
sent altered  conjuncture,  that  State-action  which 
was  once  dangerous  may  not  become,  not  only 
without  danger  in  itself,  but  the  means  of  helping 
us  against  dangers  from  another  quarter."  2 

Theorist  as  Arnold  is,  his  thoughts  press  much 
nearer  to  fact  than  those  of  his  predecessors.  The 
state  of  which  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  dreamed  had  no 
more  relation  to  the  British  government  than  the 
Heavenly  Jerusalem.  Arnold's  ideas  took  a  more 
practical  cast.  He  would  not,  indeed,  lead  us  into 
the  field  of  actual  politics,  but  airs  from  that  region 
have  a  way  of  stealing  across  us  as  we  turn  his 

1  Modern  Painters,  vol.  v. 

2  Essay  on  Democracy. 


TOWARD  AUTHORITY  271 

pages.  Though  he  was  always  disclaiming  any 
political  aim,  he  could  not  keep  his  hands  off  ques- 
tions of  the  day.  His  general  principles  are  sug- 
gested indirectly  in  illustration  of  some  immediate 
issue,  like  the  Real  Estates  Intestacy  Bill,  or  the 
famous  Bill  for  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's 
sister,  issues  local  in  interest  and  now  mostly  de- 
funct. Perhaps  the  reason  that  his  brilliant  social 
writings  are  so  little  read  to-day  is  that  they  oscil- 
late between  matters  so  temporary  that  they  have 
ceased  to  interest  us,  and  ideals  so  profound  that 
they  carry  us  out  of  our  depths. 

Arnold's  ideas  about  the  state,  then,  are  quite 
within  the  range  of  possible,  though  not  of  actual 
politics.  He  knows  the  precise  lines  on  which  he 
desires  the  definite  action  of  the  state.  The  chief 
of  these  is  in  the  direction  of  his  own  specialty, 
education.  Carlyle  had  accented  the  need  of  strong 
government  to  the  end  of  industrial  order,  Ruskin 
to  the  end  of  moral  order:  it  was  natural  that 
Arnold's  thoughts  lingered  in  his  own  province. 
Yet  he  had  an  outlook  which  swept  over  far  more 
than  one  field,  and  penetrated  in  almost  a  startling 
way  to  the  horizons  of  the  future.  "  For  twenty 
years,"  he  tells  us,  "  I  have  felt  convinced  that  for 
the  progress  of  our  civilization  here  in  England, 
three  things  were  above  all  necessary :  a  reduction 
of  those  immense  inequalities  of  condition  and  pro- 
perty among  us  of  which  our  land  system  is  the 
base ;  a  genuine  municipal  system ;  and  public 
schools  for  the  middle  class.  These  points  are 
hardly  dreamed  of  in  our  present  politics,  any  one 


272       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

of  them."  l  And  again,  with  the  same  mixture  of 
caution  and  audacity,  he  recurs  to  his  old  quarrel 
with  inequality,  and  tells  us,  in  words  that  have 
almost  a  prophetic  ring,  that  this  inequality  "  will 
be  abated  by  some  measure  far  beyond  the  scope 
of  our  present  politics,  whether  by  the  adoption  of 
the  French  law  of  bequest,  ...  or,  as  Mr.  Mill 
thought  preferable,  by  fixing  the  maximum  of  pro- 
perty which  one  individual  may  take  by  bequest  or 
inheritance,  or  in  some  other  manner.  But  this  is 
not  likely  to  come  in  our  time,  nor  is  it  to  be  desired 
that  such  a  change  should  come  while  we  are  yet 
ill-prepared  for  it." 

It  is  obvious  that  Arnold  expected  and  desired 
the  extension  of  state  functions  to  result  in  pro- 
found social  readjustments,  if  not  in  complete 
social  reconstruction.  It  was  because  his  thought 
of  possible  change  probed  so  deep  that  he  urged 
delay.  His  conception  is  that  of  an  evolutionary 
idealist.  That  the  state,  when  mechanical,  is  a 
danger  and  a  tyranny,  he  clearly  sees ;  and  he  as- 
serts that  times  come  when  distrust  of  government 
is  the  only  safeguard.  But  there  are  also  times 
when  the  best  self  of  the  community  is  sufficiently 
developed  to  crave  collective  expression  ;  and  when 
such  a  time  comes,  the  whole,  which  is  the  state, 
should  be  charged  with  full  regulating  powers.  It 
is  because  he  longs  for  the  appearance  of  this  best 
self  that  Arnold  pleads  for  culture.  "  Culture," 
he  tells  us,  "  is  the  most  resolute  enemy  of  anarchy, 
because  of  the  great  hopes  and  designs  for  the  State 

1  Ecce,  Convertimur  ad  Gentes. 


TOWARD  AUTHORITY  273 

which  culture  teaches  us  to  nourish."  The  equality 
which  he  wishes,  that  on  which  his  ideal  state  is 
founded,  is  of  a  type  that  cannot  exist  till  civiliza- 
tion has  reached  a  high  stage.  Like  liberty,  it 
waits  as  a  final  reward,  and  is  not  established  as  a 
first  condition.  His  reading  of  history  is  far  from 
the  antitheses  of  the  theoretical  doctrinaire ;  —  this 
form  of  government  or  that,  —  best  in  all  times, 
ideal,  absolute.  An  aristocracy  first,  in  the  epochs 
of  contraction,  says  Arnold ;  since  a  noble  standard 
of  life  is  the  first  need  of  social  evolution,  and  to 
create  it  is  the  function  of  the  aristocracy.  To  seek 
equality  at  too  early  a  point,  to  consider  it  as  a 
good  in  itself,  irrespective  of  the  stage  of  racial 
development,  would  be  to  materialize  society;  and 
here  Arnold  joins  issue  with  socialistic  thought,  as 
lie  understands  it,  and  agrees  with  those  conserva- 
tive thinkers  who  fear  the  rapid  progress  of  an  un- 
informed democracy.  But  once  let  a  high  ideal  of 
living  be  determined,  and  equality  becomes  not  only 
safe  but  essential  to  advance ;  for  the  race  will 
never  abandon  an  ideal  once  realized,  but  will  raise 
all  to  its  level.  First  to  establish  a  lofty  standard  : 
--then,  through  the  action  of  the  state,  to  realize 
conditions  in  which  the  free  upward-striving  instinct 
of  men  may  make  that  standard  universal,  —  such  is 
the  order  of  social  evolution.  That  we  are  nearly 
ready  for  the  second  type  of  effort,  at  least  that 
events  are  forcing  us  toward  it  whether  we  will  or 
no,  Arnold  at  his  best  believes.  How  his  predic- 
tions were  to  be  verified,  he  himself  would  have 
been  the  most  surprised  to  discover. 


274       THE  ENGLAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS 

For  of  all  the  authors  of  the  period  we  have 
studied,  it  may  be  said  that  they  know  not  what 
they  seek.  If  anything  is  clear  from  our  review,  it 
is  that  the  whole  time  is  an  epoch  of  beginnings. 
It  is  better  at  invective  than  at  close  analysis,  better 
at  analysis  than  at  reconstruction.  Behind  it  lies 
the  Revolution,  with  its  vast  ideal,  its  wide  failure, 
its  bewildering  practical  sequence.  What  lies  be- 
yond it  ?  None  of  the  men  of  the  time  could  have 
foretold.  Out  of  place  in  their  own  generation, 
they  could  identify  themselves  with  the  forces 
neither  of  conservation  nor  of  advance ;  for  con- 
servation meant  feudalism,  and  advance  meant 
Laissez  Faire.  The  sorrowful  fervor  of  Carlyle, 
with  its  mingled  compassion  and  contempt  for  hu- 
manity, its  hatred  and  assertion  of  individualism, 
its  distrust  of  the  laborers  and  reverence  for  labor, 
shows  us  a  mighty  but  confused  genius  in  the  first 
stages  of  a  great  transition.  Ruskin  accents  a 
similar  position,  but  expresses  with  more  fullness 
the  longing  for  a  society  shaped  into  a  rational 
spiritual  organism,  governed  by  vital  and  adequate 
law.  Arnold  brings  a  new  spirit  of  reaction  from 
sentiment ;  and  his  cool  survey  of  the  situation  is 
more  effective  than  any  emotional  outcry.  Yet  this 
least  sympathetic  of  our  critics  is  also  the  most 
strongly  at  odds  with  his  generation,  advances  most 
subversive  demands  for  the  overthrow  of  distinc- 
tions accounted  sacred,  and  asserts  the  future  power 
of  the  working-people  as  their  ardent  champions 
fail  to  do.  In  the  literature  of  the  Victorian  age, 
the  next  century  will  see  paradox  after  paradox. 


TOWARD  AUTHORITY  275 

It  is  the  literature  of  the  Privileged,  hailing  the 
Unprivileged  as  masters  of  the  future ;  it  combines 
an  earnest  quest  for  social  authority  with  an  entire 
scorn  of  the  powers  that  be  ;  it  demands  for  every 
individual  scope  for  complete  self-realization,  yet 
it  demands  also  that  free  competition  be  abolished, 
that  "  liberty  "  should  "  receive  new  definitions," 
and  that  society  should  be  organized  with  a  fullness 
of  law  and  strictness  of  oversight  such  as  have  so 
far  been  tolerated  in  no  modern  nation.  In  a  word, 
it  moves  toward  democracy,  but  democracy  of  a 
wholly  new  type.  It  is  possible  that  our  grand- 
children will  understand  this  literature  better  than 
we  can  understand  it  to-day,  and  that  its  seeming 
paradoxes  may  reveal  to  them  unity  of  impulse 
where  we  can  see  only  confusion.  They  may  per- 
ceive a  synthesis  of  forces  in  which  all  the  incon- 
sistencies of  Victorian  thought  are  solved.  Such  a 
synthesis  the  men  of  the  time  saw  not  at  all ;  we 
to-day  seem  at  times  to  catch  faint  glimpses  of  it, 
but  as  yet  only  as  a  possibility  open  to  question. 
Will  that  synthesis  be  the  social  democracy  of  the 
future  ?  Will  it  be  the  socialist  state  ? 


CONCLUSION 

CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 


WHEN  the  whirlwind  of  the  French  Revolution 
had  passed  by,  the  centre  of  social  passion  was 
found,  in  England,  in  the  heart  of  the  poets.  It 
remained  there  for  quarter  of  a  century.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  Victorian  age,  it  shifted,  as  we 
have  seen,  from  the  poets  to  the  writers  of  prose. 
During  fifty  years,  the  prose  authors  whom  we 
have  considered  were  more  thoroughly  awake  to 
the  gravity  of  the  social  situation  than  any  other 
group  of  men  in  England.  Politics  went  serenely 
on  its  accustomed  path ;  philanthropy  was  a  modest 
thing,  reforming  prisons  or  founding  hospitals,  but 
happily  unaware  of  the  widespread  social  disease 
which  neither  strove  nor  cried,  but  endured  in  si- 
lence. The  arts  Unmerited  the  absence  of  great  in- 
spirations in  modern  life,  and  struggled  to  create 
their  own  inspiration  from  within  and  to  become 
ends  in  themselves,  —  an  effort  in  which  no  human 
power  has  ever  succeeded.  Political  Economy 
throve  and  grew  fat  in  many  volumes,  doing  much 
fine  work,  but  building  on  a  foundation  far  nar- 
rower than  that  actual  humanity  whose  varying 
impulses  are  irreducible  to  obedience  to  the  clev- 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  277 

erest  set  of  mechanical  laws.  Only  the  great  prose 
authors  felt  the  irregular  pulses  of  the  fevered 
social  organism,  and  mourned,  pleaded,  and  hoped, 
as  we  have  seen. 

After  1880,  the  situation  changed  once  more. 
Again  the  centre  of  social  passion  shifted;  it 
passed  over  from  literature  to  life.  The  age  of 
vision  belonged  to  the  poets,  the  age  of  problem 
to  the  essayists  and  novelists;  the  age  of  experi- 
ment, in  which  we  live,  belongs  to  the  men  of 
action. 

We  have  no  longer  any  essayists  of  the  scope  or 
power  of  Carlyle,  Ruskin,  or  Arnold.  That  fact 
is  self-evident.  It  is  harder  to  draw  inferences 
concerning  the  novel,  for  fiction  as  a  whole  shows 
immense  vitality  :  yet  Du  Maurier  was  a  poor  sub- 
stitute for  Thackeray,  and  Mrs.  Ward  is  certainly 
an  impoverished  heir  of  George  Eliot.  There  are 
many  clever  men  of  letters  among  us,  each  with  a 
piquant  pose  of  his  own ;  and  our  generation  has 
possessed  at  least  one  notable  and  delightful  figure, 
-  William  Morris,  —  but  none  can  say  that  litera- 
ture offers  as  commanding  figures  to-day  as  it  did 
in  the  days  of  our  fathers.  This  does  not  mean 
that  idealism  is  waning,  but  that  it  is  absorbed 
into  life.  Where  are  the  dreamers  to-day  ?  Most 
of  them  are  not  writing  books.  They  are  in 
County  Councils,  on  Boards  of  Arbitration,  in 
Organized  Charities,  in  Social  Settlements.  Let 
them  begin,  like  Morris,  with  art  and  poetry ;  they 
are  likely  to  end  as  he  did  with  some  active  pro- 
paganda. They  are  not  dreaming  nor  even  preach- 


278  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

ing  social  righteousness,  —  they  are  trying  to  prac- 
tice it.  The  social  passion  of  the  age  of  Shelley 
was  at  two  removes  from  the  actual ;  it  soared  free 
in  the  infinite  and  heavenly  space  of  the  poet's 
imagination.  The  social  passion  of  the  age  of 
Carlyle  came  nearer;  it  moved  on  earth  among 
men,  observing,  lamenting,  exhorting,  but  passive 
still.  The  social  passion  of  our  own  times  has 
become  a  vital  part  of  the  life  it  observes,  says 
little,  and  does  what  it  may. 

A  movement  thus  transferred  from  art  to  action 
is  of  course  difficult  to  follow,  especially  when  it  is 
young,  chaotic,  and  immensely  varied  in  manifesta- 
tion. No  two  people  would  agree  in  their  empha- 
sis, or  place  values  in  the  same  light ;  nor  is  it 
possible  for  any  one  to  feel  over-confident  in  dis- 
tinguishing between  organic  phenomena  of  growth 
and  merely  accidental  expression  of  the  general 
life-energy  at  stir  among  us.  Here  we  must  aban- 
don careful  literary  analysis,  and  simply  give  brief 
impressions,  personal  and  tentative,  of  the  group- 
ings of  tendency  by  which  we  are  surrounded. 

To  say  that  the  chief  interest  of  our  social  ideal- 
ists is  shown  in  act  rather  than  in  art  is  by  no 
means  to  imply  that  modern  art  is  not  full  of  social 
expression.  On  the  contrary,  literature  and  paint- 
ing are  a-tingle  with  the  sense  of  an  expanding 
consciousness,  till  the  danger  is  that  "  problems  " 
will  degenerate  into  fads,  and  the  unemployed  find 
employment  not  exactly  adapted  to  their  needs,  as 
material  for  sentimental  fiction.  It  might  be  a  fair 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  279 

guess  to  hazard  that  three  out  of  every  five  respect- 
able novels  have  a  latent  social  animus,  whether 
they  deal  with  mere  picture,  with  arraignment,  or 
with  constructive  suggestions.  Take  up  at  random 
four  recent  books  :  let  them  be  Hall  Caine's  "  The 
Christian,"  Merriman's  "  The  Sowers,"  Miss  Wil- 
kins'  "Jerome,"  Ford's  "Peter  Stirling."  In 
every  case,  a  strong  general  interest  underlies  the 
personal  plot,  and  an  implied  estimate  of  life  in  its 
social  reactions  is  evidently  the  chief  end  of  the 
author.  The  failure  and  crudity  of  at  least  one  of 
the  books  only  brings  into  fuller  relief  the  sugges- 
tiveness  of  its  effort.  Fiction  has  gained  immensely 
in  social  scope  and  conscious  social  interest.  No- 
where is  the  gain  more  manifest  than  in  America. 
Ho  wells  and  Warner  are  not  so  much  uncovering 
the  social  layers  that  exist,  after  the  manner  of 
Dickens  and  Thackeray,  as  detecting  the  social 
layers  of  our  curious  country  in  their  very  forma- 
tion. A  whole  chapter  might  well  be  written  on 
the  high-thinking  novels  of  Howells  alone,  with 
their  keen  sense  for  social  fact,  their  keener  recog- 
nition of  social  anomaly,  their  keenest  faith  in 
social  ideals.  But  we  must  resist  the  temptation 
to  discuss  the  literature  of  America. 

Not  fiction  alone  shows  the  new  spirit.  A  vast 
amount  of  sociological  investigation  goes  on  around 
us,  and  presses  eagerly  to  practical  result.  The 
very  meaning  of  the  term  "  social  "  is  changing, 
and  carries  in  popular  thought  to-day  an  implica- 
tion wholly  different  from  that  of  twenty  years  ago. 
If  in  the  fifties  the  larger  proportion  of  serious 


280  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

magazine  articles  were  on  theological,  religious,  or 
scientific  topics,  to-day  a  large  per  cent  deals  with 
sociology.  Librarians  can  hardly  introduce  quickly 
enough  the  great  yearly  out-put  of  economic  books. 
Lectures,  sermons,  addresses  without  limit,  on  the 
same  themes,  are  in  our  ears.  These  things  are 
not  art;  but  now  and  again  a  severe  record  of 
fact,  like  Walter  Wyckoff's  "  Workers,"  is  touched 
with  a  gleam  that  lifts  it  to  a  level  with  a  work 
of  imagination,  while  depriving  it  of  none  of  the 
force  of  truth.  Indeed,  the  boundary  line  between 
art  and  life  is  hard  to  trace  when  novels  inaugu- 
rate political  movements,  and  on  the  other  hand 
modest  social  experiments  are  scarcely  started  be- 
fore the  satirist  or  the  literary  critic  pounces  upon 
them  for  "  material." 

If  we  try,  in  this  blur  of  events  and  ideas,  to 
gain  some  clear  notion  of  the  groupings  of  social 
phenomena  in  England  during  the  last  twenty 
years,  three  chief  forms  of  collective  expression 
arrest  us.  -  The  first  is  the  vigorous  young  social- 
ist movement,  which  sprang  into  existence  with 
seeming  suddenness  in  the  decade  between  1880 
and  1890,  and  still  continues  its  lusty  career.  The 
next,  yet  more  important,  is  the  surprising  spread 
of  practical  fellowship  and  intercourse  between 
members  of  the  alienated  classes,  and  the  rise  of 
the  workingman  into  self-expression.  And  the 
third  is  the  change  in  the  spirit  of  the  Christian 
Church. 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  281 

II 

The  early  Victorian  period  had  pushed  the  prac- 
tice of  individualism  very  far,  and  had  vigorously 
arraigned  its  theory.  Any  Carlyle,  writing  an- 
other "  Signs  of  the  Times  "  in  1880,  would  have 
predicted  a  reaction.  That  reaction  appeared.  It 
was  not  a  mere  instinct  or  tendency :  it  took  the 
form  of  a  social  creed  and  of  a  definite  though 
imperfectly  organized  movement.  The  creed,  the 
movement,  are  known  as  socialism ;  the  word  is 
open  to  all  manner  of  misconception,  but  what 
other  states  the  facts  ? 

No  one  can  follow  the  subtle  activities  of  con- 
science and  thought  through  the  Victorian  age, 
from  the  beginning,  and  treat  socialism  as  a  slight 
matter.  Too  many  converging  lines  lead  to  it. 
One  may  almost  say  that  every  positive  impulse 
of  reconstruction,  no  matter  from  what  point  it 
started  or  on  what  path  it  traveled,  has  moved 
unconsciously  toward  this  one  goal.  The  impulse 
of  the  artist,  wishing  to  beautify  the  visible  world 
which  man  has  made  so  ugly,  through  the  united 
efforts  of  a  free  race  alive  to  beauty ;  the  impulse 
of  the  philanthropist,  longing  for  the  relief  of  the 
manifold  forms  of  material  distress  produced  by 
modern  conditions  ;  the  impulse  of  the  philosophic 
dreamer,  seeking  an  ideal  social  harmony  ;  the  im- 
pulse of  the  practical  man,  noting  the  waste  of  a 
free  competitive  system,  and  the  economy  of  cen- 
tralization ;  the  impulse  of  the  Christian,  believing 
that  the  Holy  City  is  surely  coming  down  from 


282  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

Heaven  to  earth,  and  that  it  is  his  business  to 
translate  the  great  social  petitions  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  into  action  ;  the  impulse  of  the  skeptic,  be- 
lieving that  the  race  must  now  bend  all  its  efforts 
to  make  life  a  blessing  here,  since  it  has  lost  all 
hope  of  fulfillment  or  compensation  hereafter,  —  all 
these  play  into  the  strong,  comprehensive,  growing 
intention  to  affect  the  course  of  social  development 
now,  even  if  it  has  never  been  affected  before,  by 
the  action  of  the  resolute  human  will.  People  of 
three  great  classes  — those  who  care  most  for  the 
graces,  those  who  care  most  for  the  comforts,  those 
who  care  most  for  the  virtues,  of  life  —  are  drawn 
toward  socialism  with  a  force  which  all  feel,  and 
many,  an  increasing  number,  do  not  even  seek  to 
resist.  The  extension  of  the  authority  of  the 
democratic  state  over  industrial  matters  seems  to 
all  these  different  temperaments  to  offer  at  least 
the  first  and  most  hopeful  experiment  in  the  direc- 
tion of  social  betterment ;  and  the  spread  of  the 
socialistic  spirit  in  artistic  circles,  in  the  Church, 
in  city  politics,  and  even,  through  the  unmoralized 
form  of  the  Trust,  in  industry  itself,  has  been  so 
amazingly  rapid  that  the  mention  of  it  has  in  ten 
years  passed  from  a  heresy  to  a  platitude. 

Among  these  tendencies,  we  have  followed  only 
the  few  that  have  entered  literature.  Yet  even 
these  few  are  surely  enough  to  show  that  we  are 
facing  in  socialism  no  sudden  superficial  expression 
of  impatience,  but  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
result,  slowly  manifest,  of  much  groping  thought 
and  confused  feeling.  Says  a  recent  writer  :  "  The 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  283 

professed  socialist  is  a  rare,  perhaps  an  unneces- 
sary, person,  who  wishes  to  instruct  and  generally 
succeeds  in  scaring  humanity  by  bringing  out  into 
the  light  of  conscious  day  the  dim  principle  which 
is  working  at  the  back  of  the  course  of  events."  l 
Socialism  is  no  mere  sentiment.  It  accepts  as  its 
starting-point  the  conviction  that  the  individualist 
democratic  state  is  a  failure,  but  it  seeks  not  to 
recede,  but  to  advance.  It  believes  in  expressing 
through  the  actual  constitution  of  society,  that 
faith  in  the  social  organism  as  a  living  whole 
which  we  have  seen  so  powerfully  stirring  in  our 
authors.  To  this  end,  it  holds  the  policy  of  col- 
lective control  in  all  matters  of  collective  concern. 
The  recognition  of  a  common  duty  toward  pro- 
ductive labor  ;  the  demand  for  stable  living  condi- 
tions that  shall  remove  from  all  classes  the  hideous 
pressure  of  material  anxiety  ;  the  desire  for  oppor- 
tunity equally  shared,  and  hence  for  the  diminu- 
tion of  inequalities  in  wealth ;  the  reiterated  plea 
for  the  better  and  more  economical  organization  of 
labor  through  the  agency  of  the  state,  —  all  these 
things  enter  the  socialist  spirit  and  find  their  home 
there.  Above  all,  the  synthesis  of  democracy 
with  authority  which  we  have  seen  the  imagination 
imperatively  seeking,  and  which  has  constantly 
baffled  its  search,  finds  at  last  in  socialist  hopes 
an  answer ;  not  through  return  to  feudalism,  but 
through  the  ideal  of  a  social  system  more  highly 
organized  than  any  the  past  can  show.  Socialism 
has  proved,  indeed,  to  many  paradoxes  and  per- 
plexed contradictions,  a  House  of  Reconciliation. 

1  J.  A.  Hobson,  Problems  of  Poverty. 


284  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

Why  the  men  of  finest  feeling  and  clearest  in- 
sight in  the  last  generation  failed  to  see  the  drift 
of  their  own  thought  or  the  ideal  which  would 
content  it  is  evident  enough  in  retrospect.  Each 
was  moving  toward  socialism  with  that  part  of  his 
nature  which  faced  the  future  ;  each  was  held  away 
from  it  by  those  strong  factors  of  consciousness 
which  exist  in  every  one,  survivals  from  the  inher- 
itance of  the  past.  No  one,  it  is  obvious  on  the 
surface,  could  accept  or  imagine  socialism  who  was 
still  dubiously  holding  aloof  from  democracy,  and 
chanting  dirges  over  the  dying  aristocratic  ideal. 
Only  when  democracy,  recognized  as  the  social 
destiny  of  the  modern  world,  had  actually  forced 
the  eyes  of  the  dreamers  from  their  longing  gaze 
on  the  landscape  of  the  past,  did  it  reveal  its  own 
complex  essence,  and  show  within  its  large  nature 
two  antagonistic  tendencies  which,  if  developed, 
would  lead  to  two  social  forms  at  least  appar- 
ently opposed.  Our  fathers  could  not  see  this,  but 
we  see  it.  The  socialistic  principle,  held  in  solu- 
tion with  individualism  during  the  earlier  phases 
of  democracy,  is  recognized  at  last  as  a  separate 
impulse,  pulling  away  toward  a  sort  of  social  or- 
ganization which  has  never  yet  existed,  and  which 
promises  results  so  strange  that  it  is  no  wonder 
if  men  hold  back.  The  question  of  this  genera- 
tion is  not  any  longer  the  old  controversy  between 
democracy  and  aristocracy :  it  is  the  question  be- 
tween democracy  social,  bound  together  by  laws 
more  highly  elaborated  than  any  society  that  has 
yet  been  known,  and  democracy  individualistic,  a 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  285 

thing  governed  by  principles  inherited,  unchanged, 
and  hardly  modified  from  the  conditions  of  the 
natural  world.  Which  of  these  two  types  of  de- 
mocracy shall  be  the  social  form  of  the  future  ? 
This  is  the  only  question  which  the  logic  of  events  1 
permits  us. 

As  the  past  closes,  the  future  opens.  Those  im- 
aginations that  love  to  speculate  about  the  experi- 
ences which  await  the  endless  versatility  of  human 
nature  under  new  conditions  never  had  a  finer 
opportunity  than  to-day.  Spiritual  adventure  and 
romance  are  in  the  air,  as  fiction  has  been  quick 
to  discover.  Dramatic  possibilities  open  alluring 
and  awful  as  we  look  to  the  shifting  scenes  and 
relations  of  a  mighty  social  readjustment  surely  on 
its  way.  Nor  need  we  fear  stagnation  or  monotony 
when  the  question  now  before  us  is  decided,  which- 
ever theory  of  the  democratic  state  shall  finally 
prevail.  Not  the  most  radical  and  revolutionary 
socialist  of  the  modern  type  regards  any  social 
condition  that  he  can  imagine  to  himself  as  more 
than  the  initiation  to  a  process  of  change  and 
reformation  which  may  last  through  centuries, 
the  developments  of  which  we  can  only  dimly  sur- 
mise. Freedom  is  never  an  ultimatum ;  it  is  only 
a  condition  of  progress  ;  and  every  new  conquest 
only  leads  the  way  to  new  struggle.  To  complete 
political  liberty  and  to  rectify  its  grievous  failures 
by  the  acquisition  of  liberty  social  and  indus- 
trial will  be  as  great  a  work  as  our  generation, 
and  perhaps  the  next,  can  accomplish ;  but  once 
the  summit  won,  we  shall  cry  with  Whitman : 


286 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 


"My  spirit  does  but  level  that  lift  to  pass  and 
continue  beyond." 

Evolutionary  socialism,  pleading  for  cooperation 
in  a  process  rather  than  dogmatizing  about  a  final 
result,  is  the  only  significant  type  now  current  in 
England ;  and  stationary  communism  of  the  type 
found  in  More  lingers  only  among  the  uneducated. 
In  the  best  English  use,  socialism  is  as  far  removed 
from  a  mechanical  theory  of  a  rigid  state  as  it  is 
from  the  mere  revolutionary  desire  to  pull  society 
to  pieces,  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  humanitarian 
sentimentality,  on  the  other.  Separating  itself 
from  pure  emotionalism,  from  violence,  and  from 
dogmatism,  it  seeks  simply  to  bring  out  into  the 
light  of  day,  to  strengthen,  and  to  emphasize  those 
tendencies  toward  cooperative  organization  which 
already  exist,  and  which  nearly  all  able  and  ear- 
nest thinkers  of  the  century,  since  the  visionary 
ardors  of  its  early  years  died  away,  have  most 
eagerly  welcomed  or  longed  for. 

The  modern  English  socialist  movement  appeared 
in  the  years  between  1880  and  1885.  The  Social 
Democratic  Federation,  the  Socialist  League,  the 
Fabian  Society,  and  the  Independent  Labor  Party 
are  names  which  suggest  the  various  phases  of  its 
struggle  for  organized  existence,  and  the  various 
shades  of  opinion  it  has  assumed,  but  hardly  give 
the  clue  to  the  intellectual  unity  which,  broadly 
speaking,  underlies  them  all.  "We  have  seen  the 
many  prophetic  symptoms  by  which  this  movement 
was  heralded  in  thought.  The  actual  operative 
causes  which  produced  it  at  just  this  juncture  are 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  287 

to  be  sought  elsewhere,  not  in  literature,  but  in  the 
political  and  industrial  world.  It  has  not  been  a 
very  large  movement,  so  far  as  definitely  formu- 
lated ;  it  tends  increasingly  to  be  merged  in  the 
general  public  sentiment,  often  unaware  of  its  own 
tendency,  and  in  the  detailed  practical  effort  that 
have  advanced  to  meet  it.  The  "  Fabian  Essays  " 
remain,  after  fourteen  years,  its  most  living  and 
well-considered  expression  ;  the  very  collective  au- 
thorship of  the  book  witnesses  in  itself  to  the  new 
spirit  that  was  abroad,  to  the  reaction  from  indi- 
vidualism and  the  common  feeling  that  was  stirring 
many  minds  of  many  types  to  one  great  aim. 

The  "  Fabian  Essays  "  is  good  literature.  Nearly 
all  the  essays,  by  different  writers  though  they  be, 
have  those  qualities  of  brilliancy,  readableness,  and 
emotional  appeal  which  separate  art  from  science. 
The  very  fact  of  the  literary  character  of  the  book 
was  sadly  against  it  in  the  minds  of  many  serious 
people  ;  yet  this  character  promoted  the  enormous 
sale  which  suggests  that  the  "  Fabian  Essays " 
was  perhaps  more  effective  than  any  one  cause  in 
arousing  popular  English  thought  to  a  recogni- 
tion of  socialistic  claims.  More  than  this,  it  bore 
important  witness  to  that  invasion  of  the  world 
of  action  by  the  idealists  which  we  have  signaled 
as  one  of  the  significant  symptoms  of  these  latter 
days.  The  clever  young  essayists  were  wavering 
between  literature  and  life.  Sometimes  one  at- 
traction, sometimes  the  other,  has  conquered  since 
the  book  appeared  ;  but  usually  it  is  the  attraction 
of  life  that  has  proved  the  stronger,  and  most  of 


288  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

the  Fabians  are  now  absorbed  in  the  routine  work 
of  promoting  their  ideas  by  good  active  drudgery. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show,  following  the  satire, 
eloquence,  and  demonstration  of  the  book  from 
chapter  to  chapter,  how  its  underlying  ideas  de- 
velop and  harmonize  the  conflicting  elements  in 
the  thought  of  earlier  social  critics.  The  "  Fabian 
Essays  "  is  written  frankly  on  the  new  basis.  It 
does  not  hesitate  between  the  democratic  and  the 
aristocratic  state,  nor  even  try  to  convince  a  belated 
public  that  democracy  is  here  to  stay.  It  assumes 
democracy,  and,  the  assumption  made,  proceeds 
tranquilly,  with  biting  analysis  and  startling  sug- 
gestions of  positive  work  to  do,  to  unfold  a  social 
faith  more  coherent,  outspoken,  and  consistent 
than  any  critic  we  have  studied  has  had  to  offer. 
The  air  has  cleared  ;  and,  whatever  one  may  think 
of  the  economics  or  morals  of  the  authors,  it  is 
at  least  refreshing  to  be  for  once  in  the  presence 
of  people  who  know  their  own  minds,  and  are  free 
from  vagueness,  inconsistency,  or  bewilderment. 

The  socialism  of  the  Fabians,  and  indeed  of  all 
characteristic  English  socialists,  is  not  Marxian  in 
type.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  not  necessarily  founded 
on  the  materialistic  theory  of  social  evolution,  but 
at  least  allows,  if  it  does  not  assert,  the  admission 
of  an  ethical  or  spiritual  element  in  the  advance 
of  civilization.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  little 
in  common  with  the  French  socialism  of  1848 ;  for 
it  holds  that  the  social  forms  of  the  future  will  be 
an  organic  growth  from  those  of  the  present,  not  a 
mechanically  invented  substitution  for  them.  Eug- 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  289 

lish  socialism  has  its  own  distinct  type,  a  type 
derived,  as  would  be  easy  to  show,  from  the  special 
qualities  of  the  mixed  English  race.  We  may 
relate  it  with  much  that  is  noblest  in  the  social 
speculations  of  the  nation  as  through  long  centuries 
they  have  worked  themselves  clear.  Reviving  the 
feeling  of  Langland  toward  the  laborer  as  the  key 
to  the  social  situation,  the  Fabians  base  their  hopes 
for  the  realization  of  the  perfect  state  on  the  fresh 
organization  of  industry.  Reverting  in  many  points 
to  the  theories  of  More's  "  Utopia,"  they  plan  to 
create  the  environment  which  shall  shape  the  in- 
dividual, and  give  him  a  fair  start.  Needless  to 
say,  they  go  farther  than  either  More  or  Langland, 
for  they  expect  a  general  escape  from  social  bond- 
age, and  not  only  wish  but  hope  to  realize  Utopia 
in  England ;  and  they  set  forth  their  schemes  to 
that  end  with  a  cheerfulness,  alacrity,  and  confi- 
dence stimulating  to  the  most  skeptical. 

But  the  intuition  of  the  artist  has  played  quite 
as  important  a  part  as  the  reasoning  of  the  logician 
in  developing  the  new  social  attitude.  Nobody 
would  dream  of  calling  William  Morris  a  thinker, 
yet  he  is  something  better  than  the  most  pictur- 
esque figure  of  the  modern  movement.  Charm, 
fervor,  self -surrender,  —  these  have  always  counted 
at  least  as  much  as  ideas,  despite  the  discontent  of 
the  philosopher,  in  determining  the  onward  march 
of  men.  The  fascination  of  Morris'  work  is  so 
great  that  one  forgets  its  lack  of  thought-values  ; 
or  rather,  let  us  say  that  the  mere  spectacle  of  this 


290  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

winsome  "  dreamer  of  dreams,  born  out  of  his  due 
time,"  driven  by  stress  of  events  and  emotions  to 
"  strive  to  put  the  crooked  straight "  by  organizing 
socialist  leagues  and  haranguing  irreverent  street 
audiences  on  political  economy  which  he  did  not 
understand,  is  evidence  of  the  irresistible  impulse 
forcing  the  modern  dreamer  on  to  act,  evidence 
all  the  stronger  on  account  of  the  weakness  of  the 
dreamer's  theories. 

Anarchist  and  inveterate  idealist,  Morris  is 
one  with  socialism  on  its  critical  side,  but  absurdly 
far  from  it  in  constructive  ideas.  His  thought  is 
in  the  main,  literally  de-moralized  derivation  from 
Ruskin.  Like  his  master,  he  turned  from  beauty 
to  life,  driven  by  the  overpowering  sense  of  the 
futility  and  helplessness  of  art  in  the  presence  of 
the  modern  industrial  situation  ;  but  unlike  him, 
his  esthetic  revolt  was  complicated  neither  by  spir- 
itual mysticism,  nor  by  conservative  instincts.  It 
is  his  very  simplicity  of  type  that  makes  Morris  so 
refreshing  a  personality  among  the  modern  social 
reformers.  One  impulse,  and  only  one,  actuated 
him  in  assuming  his  position  of  rebel ;  and  it  was 
enough.  His  work  is  redeemed  from  crudeness  by 
his  delightful  interpretation  of  the  past  from  his 
own  artist-point  of  view ;  and  the  appeal  of  the 
Middle  Ages  plays  even  more  quaintly  than  with 
Ruskin  through  the  revolutionary  passion  of  the 
avowed  communist.  Perhaps  it  is  not  wholly  fan- 
tastic to  take  pleasure  in  the  links  with  the  past 
which  this  most  modern  of  radicals  affords  us,  and 
to  be  glad  that  the  most  lovely  of  all  Morris'  lovely 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  291 

writings,  the  noble  and  imaginative  "Dream  of 
John  Ball,"  carries  us  back  to  the  time  of  Lang- 
land  and  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  Peasants'  Re- 
volt. Few  more  profoundly  stirring  and  troubling 
passages  of  social  idealism  have  ever  been  vouch- 
safed us  in  prose  or  poetry  than  the  wistful  retro- 
spect-prophecy in  the  last  chapter  of  this  little 
book,  where  the  dreamer  of  the  nineteenth  century 
and  the  priest  of  God  and  freedom  of  the  four- 
teenth, strangely  brought  together  and  each  to  the 
other  a  dream  of  the  night,  hold  high  converse  con- 
cerning the  long  and  weary  struggle  for  freedom 
which  stretches  out  in  phase  after  phase  through 
the  passing  generations. 

" '  John  Ball,  be  of  good  cheer ;  for  once  more 
thou  knowest  as  I  know,  that  the  Fellowship  of 
Men  shall  endure,  however  many  tribulations  it 
may  have  to  wear  through.  Look  you,  awhile  ago 
was  the  light  bright  about  us  ;  but  it  was  because 
of  the  moon,  and  the  night  was  deep  notwithstand- 
ing, and  when  the  moonlight  waned  and  died  and 
there  was  but  a  little  glimmer  in  place  of  the 
bright  ligbt,  yet  was  the  world  glad,  because  all 
things  knew  that  the  glimmer  was  of  day  and  not 
night.  Lo,  you,  an  image  of  the  times,  to  betide  of 
the  hope  of  the  fellowship  of  men.  Yet  forsooth  it 
may  well  be  that  this  bright  day  of  summer  which 
is  now  dawning  upon  us,  is  no  image  of  the  begin- 
ning of  the  day  that  shall  be,  but  rather  shall  that 
day-dawn  be  cold  and  gray  and  surly ;  and  yet  by 
its  light  shall  men  see  things  as  they  verily  are,  and 
no  longer  enchanted  by  the  gleam  of  the  moon, 


292  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

and  the  glamour  of  the  dream-tide.  By  such  gray 
light  shall  wise  men  and  valiant  souls  see  the 
remedy  and  deal  with  it,  a  real  thing  that  may  be 
touched  and  handled,  and  no  glory  of  the  heavens 
to  be  worshiped  from  afar  off.  And  what  shall 
it  be,  as  I  told  thee  before,  save  that  men  shall  be 
determined  to  be  free  ?  ' 

Conservative  emotion  enough  there  has  been,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  to  meet  this  strong  rise  of  the 
tide  of  thought  and  feeling.  The  lingering  few  who 
still  distrust  democracy,  and  hope  for  the  reinstate- 
ment of  an  aristocratic  principle  in  society,  are  no 
more  averse  to  socialism  than  the  dominant  many 
who  shrink  from  any  extension  of  the  authority  of 
the  state,  and  believe  that  democratic  individual- 
ism, however  severe  its  results,  is  the  ultimatum  of 
social  advance.  W.  H.  Mallock,  in  his  clever  and 
able  books,  "  Labour  and  the  Popular  Welfare," 
"  The  Classes  and  the  Masses,"  and  "  Social 
Equality,"  may  be  taken  as  the  ablest  literary  op- 
ponent among  men  of  letters,  of  socialism  from  the 
aristocratic  point  of  view ;  while  Benjamin  Kidd, 
in  his  "  Social  Evolution,"  was  for  a  time,  at  least, 
the  most  popular  representative  of  current  scien- 
tific objections.  The  very  earnestness  of  the  anti- 
socialist  animus  of  these  writers  is  only  another 
witness  to  the  serious  clearness  with  which  the  pe- 
riod recognizes  the  socialistic  issue.  To  realize 
that  issue,  as  we  said  in  an  early  chapter,  was  the 
work  of  the  last  period  ;  to  face  it  seems  to  be  the 
work  of  our  own  ;  to  solve  it  is  for  the  future. 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  293 

III 

Far  from  the  battle  ground  of  theory,  that  spir- 
itual instinct  of  wider  brotherhood  which  we  have 
traced  in  its  wistful  beginnings  is  finding  free 
scope  at  last.  The  majority  live  untouched  by  it, 
many  deride  it ;  but  positive,  not  negative  factors 
are  the  significant  elements  in  any  progress,  and 
it  is  certain  that  all  around  us  earnest  people  are 
establishing  a  curiously  untrammeled  fellowship 
with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Such  a  fel- 
lowship means  activity;  eager  and  vigorous  cr 
operation  with  the  forces  in  the  collective  self 
making  for  righteousness.  Yet  however  practical 
its  manifestation,  the  governing  instinct  is  as  much 
contemplative  as  active.  The  mystic  of  former 
times,  reacting  against  conventions  and  longing  *or 
simplicity  of  life,  fled  like  Thoreau  into  the  wil- 
derness ;  the  mystic  of  the  present,  actuated  by 
the  same  impulse,  flees  not  from  but  to  the  world, 
betakes  himself,  not  to  the  woods,  but  to  a  crowded 
city  district,  and  steeps  his  soul  in  the  joy  of  the 
widest  human  sympathy  he  can  attain.  He  is 
often  misinterpreted  and  called  a  philanthropist, 
and  the  motive  of  compassion  and  service  is  doubt- 
less strongly  at  work  in  promoting  the  new  fel- 
lowship ;  yet  deep  in  the  heart  is  another  im- 
pulse, a  sense  of  need  blending  restlessly  with  the 
sense  of  power  to  help,  and  even  more  operative 
in  driving  men  out  from  the  conventions  of  class 
or  clique  into  the  fuller  freedom.  It  is  one  of 
the  practical  outcomes  of  theoretical  democracy 


294  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

that  men  begin  to  feel  that  there  is  literally  no 
privilege  in  life,  on  its  earthly  side,  so  great  as 
absolutely  free  and  unlimited  relations  with  their 
fellow  men,  and  that  actual  conditions  make  this 
privilege  rare.  People  are  to  be  found  in  plenty 
who  have  never  held  any  intercourse  with  wage- 
earners  except  either  as  employers  or  as  benefac- 
tors. Such  intercourse  as  this  is  not  abnormal, 
but  it  is  partial ;  it  brings  into  relief  only  certain 
aspects  of  character  on  either  side,  and  these  not 
always  the  best.  The  craving  for  contact  of  the 
entire  man  with  man,  for  full  expression  and  re- 
ception of  personality,  is  a  pet  theory  with  a  poet 
like  Whitman  ;  but  it  remains  theory  to  most  of 
his  readers.  To  realize  or  gratify  this  craving  in  all 
the  rich  relations  of  actual  life  by  the  constant 
extension  of  fellowship  into  new  regions  is  no  ig- 
noble desire. 

All  around  us  new  lines  of  social  cleavage  begin 
to  appear.  They  are  faint  as  yet,  and  only  to 
be  discerned  in  just  the  right  light ;  but  no  sym- 
pathetic eyes  can  mistake  them.  They  run  quite 
at  cross-purposes  to  the  sharp  lines  so  uniformly 
noted  by  our  early  social  critics.  The  ancient 
division  of  rank,  separating  the  nobleman  of  birth 
from  the  parvenu,  was  already  fading  when  Vic- 
toria ascended  the  throne ;  it  seems  to  an  out- 
sider wholly  to  have  vanished,  during  the  period 
when  the  Jew  Disraeli  became  the  darling  of  the 
British  aristocracy  ;  and  even  Mr.  Mallock  may 
lament  but  cannot  revive  it.  The  new  divisions 
so  swiftly  formed  on  commercial  lines  have  been 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  295 

on  the  whole  as  rigidly  exclusive  as  the  old ;  but 
with  the  great  difference  that  the  occasional  lucky 
or  clever  individual  could  and  did  evade  them  and 
rise  from  class  to  class,  even  to  the  social  summit. 
This  possibility  long  blinded  people,  especially  here 
in  America,  to  the  fact  that  it  existed  only  as  an 
exception,  and  that  the  average  mass  was  shut  off 
from  the  opportunities  of  privilege  as  completely 
as  in  a  feudal  regime.  The  curious  mixture  of 
fluctuation  and  rigidity  which  resulted  from  this 
state  of  things  in  our  social  conditions  has  been 
enhanced  by  many  forces,  —  the  natural  tendency 
in  a  society  founded  on  wealth  to  elaborate  forms 
of  living,  the  accumulation  of  great  fortunes,  all 
the  phenomena,  in  short,  that  make  the  stock  in 
trade  for  the  denunciation  of  our  social  Jeremiahs; 
The  satisfaction  with  which  even  the  idealists  long 
continued  to  contemplate  our  commercial  society, 
and  to  shut  their  eyes  to  its  defects,  sprang  doubt- 
less from  the  persistent  delusion  that  the  appli- 
cation of  democracy  to  political  life  was  sufficient 
to  secure  justice  and  liberty,  and  fully  to  meet  the 
intentions  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic.  But 
the  time  came  when  the  fallacy  in  this  pleasing 
theory  was  of  necessity  perceived  ;  and,  in  our  own 
day,  hints  of  new  social  groupings,  of  strange  clas- 
sifications, are  beginning  to  appear. 

"  Organic  filaments,"  as  Carlyle  felicitously 
called  them,  filaments  of  personal  friendship,  are 
spinning  themselves  among  the  ashes  of  the  old 
regime.  Each  makes  for  that  social  unity  which 
is  national  life,  each  protests  by  its  very  existence 


296  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

against  that  separation  which  is  death.  The  work- 
ing-classes and  the  privileged  are  slowly,  surely, 
drawing  together ;  and  here  and  there  we  begin  to 
see  in  detail  the  attempt  to  apply  democracy  in  its 
purest  form  to  social  life. 

What  may  be  the  result  of  this  quickening  of 
knowledge  and  sympathy  between  those  naturally 
far  apart  is  not  yet  apparent.  The  establish- 
ment of  each  tie  is,  in  any  case,  a  small  result  in 
itself,  worthy  of  thanksgiving.  Whether,  beyond 
this  immediate  good,  we  may  believe  ourselves  to 
be  at  the  origin  of  a  great  movement,  with  a  sig- 
nificant future,  it  is  impossible  to  tell;  but  sur- 
mises are  allowable  and  tempting.  Looking  for- 
ward ten  years,  we  may  be  fairly  sure  that  the  big 
world  of  prosperous  trade  and  decorous  society 
will  be  going  on  its  respectable  way  much  as  at 
present ;  but  apart  from  it  and  opposed  to  it  in 
toto,  we  may  easily  imagine  that  we  see  great 
groups  of  people,  bound  together  by  personal  ties 
and  by  spiritual  faith,  and  earnestly  striving  after 
a  nobler  civilization.  Children  of  privilege  and 
children  of  toil  will  be  united  in  these  groups ; 
thinkers  and  laborers  ;  women  and  men  of  deli- 
cate traditions  and  fine  culture,  mingled  in  close 
spiritual  fellowship  with  those  whose  wisdom  has 
been  gained  not  through  opportunity,  but  through 
deprivation.  They  will  have  found  a  deep  union 
in  a  common  experience  and  common  desire,  under- 
lying all  intellectual  and  social  difference.  They 
will  realize  in  a  measure  the  old  dream  of  Lang- 
land,  —  fellow-pilgrims  of  Truth,  while  they  share 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  297 

life  and  labor  in  joyous  comradeship.  And  they 
will  aim,  like  More,  at  a  reshaping  and  regenera- 
tion of  all  society,  shutting  themselves  up  in  no 
small  or  isolated  experiment ;  for  they  will  realize 
that  the  fellowship  they  love  can  never  be  perfected 
except  under  conditions  of  a  literally  universal 
freedom. 

If  we  would  look  for  the  signs  of  this  new  fel- 
lowship, we  can  turn  indiscriminately  to  fiction  or 
to  fact.  It  has  taken  the  workingman  a  long  time 
to  gain  the  entree  into  the  world  of  letters ;  but  he 
has  arrived  at  last.  Wordsworth  was  probably  the 
first  English  author  whose  people  worked  with  their 
hands  for  a  living.  Charles  Lamb  could  not  away 
with  the  Peddler  as  hero  of  the  "  Excursion,"  but 
that  worthy  held  his  own,  along  with  the  Leech- 
gatherer,  the  sailors,  the  shepherds,  the  reapers,  — 
people  whose  character  was  accented  by  their 
occupation,  and  who  could  dispense  with  a  large 
variety  of  melodramatic  adventures  because  their 
time  was  spent  in  carrying  on  the  business  of 
life,  and  in  gaining  spiritual  experience  thereby. 
Between  Wordsworth's  day  and  ours  lies  a  long 
development  in  the  literary  treatment  of  the  pro- 
ducing class.  To-day,  to  reveal  this  class,  soul, 
body,  and  conditions,  is  one  of  the  chief  quests  of 
modern  romance.  To  feel  how  great  a  distance  we 
have  traveled,  we  need  only  try  to  imagine  Sir 
Walter  Scott  reading  "  Marcella  "  and  "  Sir  George 
Tressady."  Between  the  two  there  is  a  constantly 
progressive  gain  in  actuality.  Imaginative  under- 


298  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

standing  of  the  types  developed  among  modern 
workers,  of  their  interests,  prejudices,  aspirations, 
passions,  deformities,  and  heroisms,  is  essential  to 
any  right  judgment  of  the  social  situation.  Its 
splendid  artistic  and  human  opportunity,  fiction  has 
discerned  but  slowly;  it  is  awakening  to  this  op- 
portunity at  last ;  and  Dickens  and  Kingsley  seem 
nearly  as  remote  as  Rousseau  to  a  generation  that 
reads  Kipling,  Morison,  and  Hamlin  Garland. 
Probably  the  very  readable  books  of  Sir  Walter 
Besant  inaugurated  the  modern  attitude,  which 
tries  to  see  things  as  they  are ;  but  "  All  Sorts  and 
Conditions  of  Men  "  and  "  The  Children  of  Gib- 
eon  "  seem  a  little  old-fashioned  to-day.  Their 
studies  in  East  London  life  are  written  with  the 
air  of  an  explorer  in  strange  and  unknown  lands. 
Types  are  cleverly  caught,  but  are  seen  only  from 
a  distance :  the  shop-girl's  bang  is  better  discerned 
than  her  manners,  and  her  manners  than  her  soul ; 
while  Angela  and  Valentine,  the  engaging  hero- 
ines, are  inventions  of  the  reformer,  not  real  girls. 
The  books  as  a  whole  are  frankly  Utopian.  In 
the  few  years  that  have  passed  since  these  pleasant 
stories  were  written,  the  sense  of  actuality  in  fic- 
tion has  deepened  with  amazing  rapidity.  Dialect 
stories,  labor-movement  stories,  stories  of  railroad 
people,  of  cow-boys,  of  employees,  clerks,  light- 
house keepers,  politicians,  street-waifs,  all  witness 
to  the  hunger  of  the  public  for  knowledge  of  the 
common  life.  Some  of  this  writing  is  bad  and 
cheap,  but  some  of  it  is  good ;  and  the  best  thing 
about  it  is  that,  for  the  most  part,  its  direct  animus 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  299 

is  not  that  of  the  reformer,  but  of  pure  brotherly 
interest.  Art  is  drawing  near  and  telling  facts 
where  it  used  to  stand  at  a  distance  and  invent 
melodrama.  To  see  how  much  it  profits  by  its 
new  attitude,  how  pathos,  above  all,  gains  in  poign- 
ancy when  it  forgets  itself  and  becomes  obedient 
to  truth,  one  need  only  compare  Dickens'  first 
social  novel,  "  Oliver  Twist,"  with  a  little  modern 
book  curiously  similar  in  subject,  Arthur  Mori- 
son's  "  Child  of  the  Jago."  Such  a  story,  again, 
as  Kipling's  "  magically  accurate  "  study  of  Bada- 
lia  Herodsfoot,  as  one  who  should  know  calls  it, 
shows  that  a  tradition  of  truth  is  established  from 
which  fiction  would  find  it  hard  to  retreat.  In 
"  Marcella,"  poor  though  the  book  is  as  a  novel, 
we  feel  that  the  heroine  and  the  environment  are 
a  transcript  from  life,  not  a  suggestion  to  life,  as 
in  the  stories  of  Besant ;  and  the  story,  with  its 
sequel,  bears  clear  witness  to  the  breaking  down 
of  barriers  and  the  growth  of  social  intercourse 
between  the  alienated  classes. 

In  this  drawing  together  of  the  privileged  and 
the  unprivileged  nothing  is  more  hopeful  than  that 
the  unprivileged  are  finding  their  voice.  For  it 
would  be  foolish  to  pretend  that  comprehension 
between  classes  is  instinctive.  Barriers  of  wealth 
and  rank  vanish  instantly  to  the  spiritual  gaze, 
but  there  are  other  barriers  more  persistent.  The 
well-bred  are  practically  the  well-born  in  the 
modern  world,  and  the  spoken  sentence  places  a 
man  more  surely  than  his  clothes  or  his  manners. 


300  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

When  all  conventions  are  discarded,  the  fact 
remains  that  it  is  never  easy  to  establish  relations 
of  full  understanding  between  men  trained  only  in 
the  school  of  life  and  those  trained  in  the  school 
of  letters.  Minds  do  not  work  in  the  same  way : 
moral  standards  are  curiously  different ;  values 
appear  in  quite  a  different  light ;  prejudices  and 
traditions  are  often  diametrically  opposed ;  and  it 
sometimes  seems  that  only  a  miracle  can  promote 
that  sincere  and  serious  intercourse  necessary  to 
real  comradeship.  There  is  need  of  every  social 
settlement,  every  labor  conference,  every  associa- 
tion of  professional  men  with  manual  workers,  to 
make  the  distance  less. 

The  difficulty  is  enormously  increased  by  the 
fact  that  the  unprivileged  classes  are  usually  inar- 
ticulate. It  is  the  weakness  of  all  our  social  liter- 
ature that  it  is  written  entirely  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  privileged.  On  the  work  of  William 
Morris,  on  that  of  many  a  radical  socialist,  rests 
the  hall-mark  of  refinement,  and  the  very  choice- 
ness  of  its  ideas  and  tastes  is  in  danger  of  limiting 
its  appeal  to  the  aristocrat,  and  of  bringing  it  even 
into  the  sphere  of  the  dilettante  or  the  amateur.  In 
spite  of  the  earnestness  and  eloquence  of  much  of 
the  social  criticism  which  we  have  passed  in  review, 
one  is  instinctively  sure  that  only  the  very  excep- 
tional workingman  would  ever  read  it.  And  yet, 
the  cause  of  the  spiritual  democracy  can  never  be 
wholly  won  by  the  movement  of  the  rich  toward 
the  poor.  There  must  be  a  corresponding  move- 
ment of  the  poor  toward  the  rich,  and  the  society 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  301 

of  the  future  must  be  formed  by  the  intellectual 
as  well  as  the  practical  cooperation  of  all. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  self-expression  of 
the  laboring  classes  can  never  be  so  copious  nor  so 
complete  as  that  of  the  leisure  class  and  the  well- 
to-do.  Yet  here  and  there  the  dim  stirrings  of 
life  and  desire,  the  ideals,  aims,  and  characteristic 
thoughts,  which  distinctively  belong  to  the  vast 
throng  of  unlettered  men,  are  making  themselves 
known.  Working-people  do  not  speak  with  the  pol- 
ish, with  the  logic,  nor  even  with  the  power  always 
to  say  exactly  the  thing  they  mean,  that  might  be 
desired.  But  to  listen  to  them  is  more  important 
on  the  whole  than  to  air  one's  own  theories,  or 
even  to  record  one's  own  observations.  To  hear  one 
speech  by  a  labor  leader  is  more  instructive  than 
to  read  any  number  of  brilliant  studies  of  labor 
leaders  made  from  the  outside.  Such  speeches  are 
nowadays  often  accessible,  but  the  educated  public 
does  not  appreciate  the  privilege  of  hearing  them. 
It  is  curious  in  a  busy  lecture  season  to  meditate 
on  the  symbolic  audiences  assembled  in  different 
parts  of  the  same  city.  Here  are  well-dressed  and 
critical  crowds  listening  with  mild  pleasure  to  lec- 
tures on  botany  or  poetry  or  history,  or,  it  may  be, 
economics ;  and  here  at  the  other  end  of  the  town 
is  another  audience,  less  well  dressed,  an  audience 
close  proximity  to  which  is  not  always  agreeable, 
one  possessing,  probably,  a  much  larger  proportion 
of  men  than  that  other  just  left ;  and  it  listens, 
not  with  critical  unimpassioned  enjoyment,  but 
with  tense  interest,  with  passion,  with  cries  of  ap- 


302  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

proval  or  wrath,  as  the  case  may  be.  The  address 
delivered  to  this  audience  of  the  workers  will  in  all 
probability  be  redolent  of  an  idealism  and  of  a  wist- 
ful moral  passion  wholly  out  of  the  range  of  speaker 
or  audience  up-town  ;  probable  also,  while  it  quick- 
ens the  pulse  with  disinterested  fervor  for  justice 
and  freedom,  it  will  lead  the  mind  astray  with 
reasoning  pitifully  false ;  but  it  is  entirely  certain 
that  the  tone  and  temper  of  the  up-town  and  down- 
town addresses  will  be  emanations  from  two  dif- 
ferent worlds,  which  have  so  strangely  little  in 
common  that  it  is  difficult  to  realize  that  they  both 
exist  within  the  limits  of  the  same  community. 

There  are,  then,  many  reasons  why  intelligent 
and  thoughtful  men  and  women  should  read  with 
especial  interest  a  book  like  Robert  Blatchford's 
"  Merrie  England."  For  the  book  comes  straight 
from  the  people  ;  it  is  written  for  the  people  ;  and 
the  people  have  absorbed  it  by  thousands.  It  is  the 
most  genuine  self-expression  of  the  working-classes, 
and  can  tell  us  most  concerning  their  mental  life 
of  any  English  book  in  the  century.  Not  of  course 
that  all  English  wage-earners  agree  with  Blatch- 
ford's position  of  advanced  socialism,  but  that  the 
book  has  done  what  university  extension  and  the 
best-intentioned  efforts  of  the  intellectual  philan- 
thropist generally  fail  to  do  :  it  has  reached  those 
whom  it  meant  to  reach.  They  have  understood 
it,  they  have  read  it ;  it  has  therefore  expressed 
not  perhaps  their  views,  but  their  minds.  Xo 
one  who  knows  intimately  some  of  the  many  think- 
ing members  among  the  wage-earning  class  to-day 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  303 

can  fail  to  recognize  in  the  method  and  appeal 
of  "  Merrie  England,"  an  entirely  accurate  reflec- 
tion of  their  mental  qualities,  their  strength  and 
weakness,  their  differences  from  the  ordinary  citi- 
zen, differences  which  are  sometimes  for  the  better 
and  sometimes  for  the  worse.  First,  the  book  is 
morally  sound,  and  actuated  by  a  wholly  noble 
passion,  and  a  disinterested  desire  for  social  salva- 
tion and  freedom  such  as  is  still  too  rare  among 
those  who  do  not  live  face  to  face  with  the  life- 
results  of  modern  industry  on  the  worker.  It  is 
inflammatory  enough,  but  no  fair-minded  person 
could  accuse  it  of  interested  motives.  Its  freedom 
from  such  motives  is  quite  characteristic  of  the 
class  it  represents ;  for  we  too  often  forget,  or  are 
not  intelligent  enough  to  recognize,  that  the  indi- 
vidual workingman  who  is  able  to  rise  out  of  the 
ranks  and  make  himself  felt  as  a  power  by  his 
speaking  or  writing  has  usually,  so  far  as  personal 
considerations  go,  nothing  to  gain  and  everything 
to  lose  by  agitation.  He  represents  the  excep- 
tional man,  who  is  little  likely  to  suffer  in  times  of 
industrial  stress  ;  and  he  might,  in  all  probability, 
lift  himself  away  from  his  class  if  he  liked,  with 
more  gain  and  ease  than  he  will  have  in  becoming 
its  self-appointed  spokesman.  The  next  thing  that 
arrests  attention  in  Blatchford's  book  is  its  shrewd 
common  sense,  not  only  assumed,  but  real ;  the 
fullness  of  detail,  the  minute  and  ready  practical 
knowledge  of  actual  industrial  life,  which  enriches 
it  and  gives  it  the  convincing  tone  that  it  certainly 
possesses.  And  then,  as  we  read  on,  we  find  that 


304  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

the  reasoning  powers  of  the  author  are  simply 
those  of  the  child ;  that  the  book  is  riddled  by 
fallacies  from  cover  to  cover ;  that  it  jumps  with 
no  transition  from  the  smallest  of  concrete  facts 
to  the  most  sweeping  of  abstract  conclusions  ;  in  a 
word,  that  it  is  the  product  of  an  untrained  mind. 
But  unless  we  are  intellectual  snobs  of  the  first 
water,  we  shall  not  at  this  point  dismiss  the  book 
as  simply  worthless  and  pernicious.  We  shall 
rather  return  to  our  first  impression  ;  and  we  shall 
find  in  its  indomitable  idealism,  in  its  resolute  love 
of  man  and  freedom,  in  its  sturdy  knowledge  of 
the  working-people,  and  its  ringing  call  to  high 
social  faith  and  action,  elements  as  valuable  to  the 
common  thought  as  those  which  the  most  cautious 
and  accurate  scholar  could  contribute.  We  shall 
recognize  that  large  intuitions  and  keen  experience 
have  their  place  after  all,  and  are  factors  only  less 
important  than  sound  reasoning  in  the  formation 
of  social  ideals ;  and  we  shall  feel  convinced,  ac- 
cepting the  book  as  typical  of  the  class  for  which 
it  was  written,  that  the  workers,  despite  their 
"  prejudices  "  so  complementary  to  our  own,  and 
despite  their  difficulties  in  straight  reasoning  and 
economic  analysis,  have  yet  something  of  quite  in- 
calculable value  to  contribute  to  the  dynamics  of 
the  social  movement.  It  is  perhaps  through  them 
that  idealism,  long  hovering  in  exile,  half-spurned, 
half-desired  by  a  generation  of  anxious  and  timid 
thinkers,  will  once  more  be  summoned  among  us, 
and  that  there  may  be  born  again,  in  a  decadent  and 
weary  society,  the  healthful  spirit  of  the  little  child. 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  305 

IV 

Democracy,  which  entered  England  hand  in  hand 
with  Christianity,  has  become  strangely  separated 
from  its  companion  during  its  long  wanderings. 
The  relation  between  the  two  was  still  close  in 
Langland ;  in  More,  it  had  become  chiefly  theoret- 
ical ;  in  the  century  of  Swift,  it  had  ceased  to  exist. 
At  this  time,  however,  both  democracy  and  Chris- 
tianity were  sleeping.  During  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  two  powers  have  been  groping  each  for 
the  other,  hampered  and  well-nigh  helpless  on  ac- 
count of  their  separation,  yet  not  knowing  what 
they  lacked. 

Democracy  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  first  to 
awaken.  The  social  revival  came  from  a  source 
without  the  Church,  and  for  a  long  time  in  seem- 
ing opposition  to  it.  Doubtless,  the  radical  move- 
ment owed  far  more  than  its  promoters  realized 
to  Christian  influence.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  none 
of  the  social  literature  of  any  European  country 
could  have  been  produced  except  from  a  civili- 
zation steeped  for  ages  in  Christianity.  The  pro- 
gressive thought  of  England,  unlike  that  of  the 
Continent,  has  rarely  been  anti-Christian,  and  it  is 
easy  to  recognize  the  Christian  spirit  in  all  our 
writers,  whether  in  the  wistful  gentleness  of  Thack- 
eray, the  abounding  sentiment  of  Dickens,  .the 
moral  depth  of  George  Eliot,  or  the  ethical  bias 
which  none  of  our  speculative  thinkers  can  escape. 
But  if  the  thought  we  have  passed  in  review  has 
not  been  anti-Christian,  it  has  been  for  the  most 


306  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

part  un-Christian.  Ruskin  alone  among  the  crit- 
ics deliberately  invokes  Christianity  as  a  social 
authority  still  possibly  in  force  in  some  quarters, 
and  shapes  his  theories  on  avowedly  Christian, 
though  wholly  non-dogmatic,  lines.  It  is  in  the 
name  of  natural  justice,  common  sense,  and  reason, 
not  in  the  name  of  any  revealed  law  of  human  con- 
duct or  relationships,  that  the  strongest  appeals  of 
our  social  literature  are  made.  From  the  time  of 
the  revolutionary  poets,  social  passion  in  England 
is  shy,  silent,  or  indifferent,  when  it  is  not  scornful, 
in  the  presence  of  organized  Christianity. 

But  this  state  of  things  could  not  continue,  so 
long  as  the  burning  words  of  the  Gospels  were  not 
blotted  out  from  the  New  Testament  daily  read 
in  the  churches,  and  so  long  as  the  facts  of  the 
supreme  Life  of  all  history  remained  the  great  in- 
heritance of  the  world.  To  trace  the  social  awaken- 
ing of  the  modern  Church  is  to  read  one  of  the 
most  interesting  chapters  of  religious  experience. 

The  spiritual  depths  were  stirred  first.  For  the 
social  impulse  in  the  Church  is  always  effect  and 
not  cause  of  her  deepest  life.  It  has  sometimes 
appeared  logical  and  desirable  to  try  to  initiate 
a  quickening  of  her  stagnant  powers  by  a  purely 
humanitarian  enthusiasm,  but  the  attempt  has 
never  succeeded ;  for  some  reason,  that  is  not  the 
way  her  experience  works.  The  Oxford  Movement, 
which  men  of  all  schools  and  parties  now  recognize 
as  the  turn  of  the  tide  in  the  religious  life  of  modern 
England,  was  wholly  bent  on  other  than  social  aims. 
Its  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  primitive  and  mediaeval 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  307 

Church  rather  than  on  the  world  of  its  own  day. 
It  was  in  many  respects  like  the  Puritans  of  whom 
it  so  strongly  disapproved,  so  bent  on  saving  souls, 
and  on  formulating  theology,  that  no  energy  was 
left  it  for  consideration  of  the  collective  life  which 
surrounded  it ;  and  indeed,  it  was  too  much  afraid 
of  the  world  to  scrutinize  her  ways. 

Yet  the  Catholic  reaction  held  latent  factors  of 
high  importance  in  the  social  revival.  We  might 
not  appreciate  those  factors  even  to-day,  if  the  later 
history  of  the  reaction  were  not  bringing  them  out 
constantly  into  dramatic  relief.  But,  looking  back 
in  the  light  of  the  striking  social  development  in 
its  recent  phases,  we  can  clearly  see  that  it  car- 
ried with  it  social  implications  of  the  most  radical 
order.  In  its  own  way,  it  was  pervaded  from  the 
first  by  that  sense  of  the  organic  unity  of  human 
life  which  was  struggling  all  through  this  period 
to  assert  itself  against  the  disintegrating  instincts 
that  were  dominating  popular  thought.  The  or- 
ganism of  which  the  Oxford  leaders  were  supremely 
conscious  was  indeed  not  society  at  large,  but  the 
Catholic  Church ;  yet  that  Church  was  dear  to  them 
only  as  the  ideal  expression  of  the  human  race,  the 
Fellowship  which  realized  the  will  of  God  for  all 
his  children.  Their  belief  in  a  Church  visible,  a 
mighty  association  of  men,  actuated  by  unworldly 
motives,  and  avowedly  indifferent  to  fleshly  good, 
had  a  deep  social  impressiveness.  In  that  reaction 
against  "  Liberalism,"  which  Arnold  noted  as  the 
distinctive  battle  so  valiantly  waged  by  Newman 
and  his  comrades,  we  have  simply  a  fresh  phase  of 


308  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

the  general  revolt  of  which  we  have  already  followed 
so  many  other  aspects.  And  the  longing  for  co- 
herence, for  unity,  for  authority,  which  we  have 
found  so  potently  at  work  in  the  thought  of  all  men 
of  the  future,  was  the  chief  intellectual  feature  of 
the  Oxford  Movement. 

Yet  even  more  striking  in  its  social  implication 
was  the  personal  attitude  which  the  movement  dif- 
fused. It  brought  unworldliness  back  from  a  sen- 
timent to  a  practice.  Against  luxury,  self-indul- 
gence, and  ease  it  set  its  face  like  a  flint.  The 
beautiful  sermons  of  Newman,  so  suave,  so  severe, 
with  their  inveterate  hatred  of  the  "  gentlemanlike," 
the  "comfortable,"  and  the  "established,"  and  their 
marvelous  gift  of  revealing  the  eternal  facts  below 
the  temporal,  did  an  incalculable  work  in  restoring 
to  their  readers  and  hearers  the  sense  of  the  reality 
underlying  convention.  He  who  eagerly  yielded 
his  soul  to  the  spirit  of  the  movement  soon  found 
himself  like  his  leader,  aware  of  "  two,  and  two  only, 
absolute  and  luminously  self-evident  beings,  himself 
and  his  Creator."  The  world  and  the  lust  thereof 
receded  into  the  distance,  and  consciousness  was 
filled  by  the  austerity  of  the  Christian  claim,  and 
the  duty  of  renunciation.  This  renunciation  was, 
it  is  true,  simply  to  the  end  of  the  attainment  of 
personal  holiness.  It  was  inspired  by  no  wish  to 
share  earthly  goods  with  others,  or  to  minister  to 
the  hungry,  but  only  by  the  wish  to  escape  the 
taint  of  the  evil  world.  Yet  to  introduce  in  a  lusty 
commercial  civilization  any  motive  strong  enough 
to  turn  throngs  of  people  from  comfort  and  luxury 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  309 

to  a  life  of  stern  self-denial  was  assuredly  to  do 
a  great  and  salutary  thing.  The  moral  sternness 
of  the  teachings  of  all  the  leaders  of  the  Oxford 
Movement  was  one  of  the  few  bracing  influences  of 
the  period  in  which  they  worked.  No  one  can  read 
such  a  sermon  as  that  of  Newman  "  On  the  Danger 
of  Riches,"  without  feeling  that  the  thought  there 
expressed,  while  very  far  from  that  of  our  own  day, 
yet  held  our  thought  in  its  germ.  Last  but  greatest 
of  the  social  influences  of  the  movement  was  that 
sacramental  conception  of  life  which  it  sought  so 
solemnly  to  revive  in  the  Anglican  Church.  Asso- 
ciated at  times  in  its  origin  with  a  dreamy  asceti- 
cism which  shut  off  its  votaries  from  healthful 
relations  with  the  world,  this  conception  yet  held 
in  its  depths  an  imperative  craving  for  the  sancti- 
fication  of  the  flesh  and  of  all  human  life,  and 
fostered  an  attitude  wholly  different  from  that  of 
the  Puritan,  who  would  immerse  himself  in  spirit- 
ual concerns  and  allow  the  visible  universe  to  go 
as  rapidly  as  possible  on  its  foreordained  way  of 
destruction. 

The  Oxford  Movement  was,  then,  full  of  latent 
social  suggestions.  But  it  had  a  work  to  do  more 
obvious  and  compelling  than  any  effort  after  social 
regeneration.  Its  stormy  history  of  religious  strug- 
gle, its  impassioned  absorption  in  the  attempt  to 
establish  a  new  theological  and  ecclesiastical  atti- 
tude in  the  Anglican  Church,  obscured  for  a  long 
time  its  social  implications.  In  a  way,  its  more 
superficial  and  temporary  interests  were  for  many 
years  most  in  evidence ;  and  we  cannot  find  sur- 


310  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

prising,  though  we  must  find  lamentable,  the  utter 
inability  of  Carlyle  and  men  of  his  school  to  see 
in  the  whole  movement  anything  higher  than  a 
pathetic  but  on  the  whole  absurd  effort  to  revive 
dead  forms  for  their  own  poor  sake. 

Only  a  little  later,  the  distinctly  social  conscience 
of  the  Church  stirred  and  awoke,  and  the  words 
Christian  Socialism,  sounding  a  combination  wholly 
preposterous  to  the  ears  of  that  generation,  were 
first  heard.  They  were  spoken  under  the  stimulus 
of  the  pathetic  failure  of  the  Chartist  movement 
of  '33  to  '48.  Chartism  was  the  first  revolt  on  the 
part  of  the  workers  to  reach  the  consciousness  of 
the  educated  classes ;  and  though  it  missed  its  direct 
aims,  its  reaction  on  public  sentiment,  especially  in 
the  Church,  was  most  useful.  Frederick  Denison 
Maurice  and  Charles  Kingsley,  the  men  who  felt 
it  most  keenly,  were  thrilled  through  and  through 
by  the  awful  discovery  which  it  brought  home  to 
them  of  unrighteousness  and  injustice  in  a  Christian 
nation.  They  were  not  men  of  as  much  charm  and 
grace  in  literary  expression  as  the  kindred  group 
across  the  Channel,  —  Lamennais,  Lacordaire,  and 
Montalembert,  who  were  fighting  the  cause  of  social 
freedom  in  the  Gallican  Church;  but  they  were 
free  from  the  sentimentality  of  these  delightful 
French  idealists.  Maurice  was  a  profound  thinker 
and  a  saint ;  Kingsley,  an  ardent  fighter  and  a  ver- 
satile and  pleasant  novelist.  Together,  with  a  few 
comrades  —  Thomas  Hughes,  J.  M.  Lucllow  - 
who  rallied  around  them,  they  took  a  noteworthy 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  311 

stand.  They  announced  for  the  first  time  in  modern 
years  the  responsibility  of  Christianity  toward  the 
practical  conditions  of  the  world  in  which  it  found 
itself. 

The  Christian  Socialism  of  Kingsley  and  Maurice 
was  both  more  and  less  than  its  name  implied.  It 
did  not  even  perceive,  far  less  grasp,  the  economic 
doctrine  which  the  word  Socialism  to-day  carries. 
The  founders  of  the  movement  were  stanch  mon- 
archists and  aristocrats.  Yet  spiritually  they  rested 
on  a  principle  deeper  and  more  radical  than  that 
which  ordinary  socialism  has  discovered :  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  brotherhood  of  man  is  an  absolute 
reality,  springing  from  the  fatherhood  of  God. 
This  principle  underlay  all  the  profound  theology 
of  Maurice.  It  was  the  clue  to  that  large  compre- 
hensiveness of  sympathy  which  distinguished  him 
among  all  men  of  his  day,  and  which  was  as  opera- 
tive in  the  region  of  clashing  social  theories  as  in 
that  of  spiritual  quests.  The  enunciation  of  that 
principle  had  not  become  a  truism  in  those  days 
nor  sunk  into  cant.  It  led  at  once,  with  the  strong 
men  possessed  by  it,  to  very  radical  inferences,  both 
in  theory  and  practice.  The  theory  may  still  be 
read  to  much  advantage  by  this  generation  in  the 
noble  sermons  and  commentaries  of  Maurice,  in  the 
novels  of  Kingsley,  and  best,  perhaps,  in  the  stirring 
correspondence  between  the  two  men  during  the 
active  days  of  the  movement.  Their  teaching  had 
much  in  common  with  that  of  Ruskin,  who  was 
brought  in  contact  with  them  through  his  work  in 
the  Workingmen's  College  founded  by  Maurice; 


312  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

but  of  course  it  rested  more  boldly  on  a  foundation 
of  not  only  ethical  but  dogmatic  Christianity.  It 
was  all  a  plea  for  the  permeation  of  society,  in  its 
every  activity  and  relation,  by  the  law  of  Christian 
love.  It  had  as  keen  a  sense  of  the  reality  of  the 
unseen  as  had  the  thought  of  Newman,  but  it  had 
a  keener  sense  of  the  reality  and  importance  of  the 
seen ;  and  the  world  was  to  it  less  a  foe  to  be  over- 
come than  a  kingdom  to  be  redeemed.  The  practi- 
cal attempts  of  the  movement  to  apply  its  ideals  to 
fact  were  not  on  a  large  scale,  but  they  were,  for 
that  time,  most  significant.  A  definite  campaign 
against  sweat-shops  on  the  part  of  clergymen  was 
quite  a  new  thing,  and  so  was  the  effort  to  establish 
cooperative  industries.  The  Christian  socialists  also 
were  the  first  people  of  education  unobtrusively  to 
seek  personal  relations  with  wage-earners :  Mr.  J. 
M.  Ludlow,  Maurice's  friend,  believes  that  he  was 
the  first  gentleman  in  England  to  invite  a  work- 
ingman  to  tea.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  whether 
their  contemporaries  were  more  scandalized  by  the 
theories  or  by  the  practice  of  these  devoted  pio- 
neers ;  but  the  wrath  and  persecution  excited,  both 
in  and  out  of  their  own  communion,  by  a  position 
which  seems  to  us  to-day  very  moderate  and  modest 
suggests  the  work  which  has  at  least  been  accom- 
plished in  accustoming  thought  to  advanced  social 
ideas,  even  if  slight  advance  in  action  can  be 
claimed,  during  the  last  fifty  years. 

It  is  not  easy  to  say  why  the  social  impulse,  so 
strong  in  1848,  seemed  before  long  practically  to  die 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  313 

out  from  the  Church.  Perhaps  it  had  been  prema- 
ture. Perhaps  the  spiritual  tide  had  not  yet  risen 
sufficiently  high  to  sustain  it.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  the  ideas  of  Maurice  worked  through  diffusion, 
not,  like  those  of  Newman,  through  concentration, 
and  so  took  longer  to  make  their  way.  Whatever 
the  cause,  the  Church  from  1850  to  1880  shared  in 
the  general  ebb-tide  of  social  interest  and  feeling 
against  which  Carlyle,  and  later  Ruskin,  was  strug- 
gling almost  alone.  She  did  not,  however,  sink 
back  to  her  old  level  of  universal  stagnation ;  and 
her  deepening  spiritual  earnestness  gave  evidence 
of  an  abundant  life  that  was  sure  to  express  itself 
in  unforeseen  ways  when  the  time  should  be  ripe. 

The  new  social  awakening  came,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  secular  world  during  the  fertile  period  after 
1880.  And  shame  on  shame  indeed  would  it  have 
been  had  the  Church  again  held  back,  when  that 
secular  world,  critical,  artistic,  practical,  was  all 
opening  its  eyes  to  see,  its  heart  to  feel,  its  hands 
to  act.  She  has  not  held  back.  She  has  followed, 
if  she  could  not  lead ;  and  this  time,  the  impulse 
astir  within  her  is  a  larger,  fuller,  deeper  thing  than 
it  has  ever  been  before.  For  it  has  been  no  affair 
of  a  party,  or  of  a  few  solitary  individuals.  The 
desire  to  understand  and  to  practice  the  social 
truths  innate  in  Christianity  is  moving,  in  every 
religious  communion,  toward  results  which  we  can- 
not yet  see.  Who  shall  say,  indeed,  how  potent  is 
the  influence  of  the  profound  radicalism  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  with  its  penetrating  appeal  to  utter 
unworldliness,  to  the  perfect  love  which  is  perfect 


314  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

service,  even  on  the  throngs,  remote  from  any 
Church  connection,  who  are  sensitive  to  a  quicken- 
ing power?  Even  the  most  atheistic  of  socialists, 
even  the  many  people  who  hold  their  religious  and 
their  social  radicalism  as  inevitable  parts  of  one 
attitude,  yet  feel  and  constantly  say  that  Christ  is 
Leader  in  their  fellowship,  and  invoke  the  Gospels 
while  they  scoff  at  the  Church.  It  is  difficult,  it  is 
impossible,  to  define  or  describe  a  tendency  of  which 
we  are  all  the  disciples  ;  but  so  much  it  is  safe  to 
say,  —  that  with  the  intellectual  impulse  toward  the 
reconstruction  of  social  theory,  and  the  practical 
impulse  toward  the  activity  of  social  service,  is 
blending  more  and  more  a  spiritual  impidse  deeper 
than  either  of  these,  imperatively  desiring  and 
seeking  the  realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on 
earth. 

All  around  us,  we  can  see  in  the  religious  world 
two  tendencies  rushing  together :  one  is  that  intui- 
tion of  the  large  misery  of  the  disinherited,  and 
their  appeal  for  help,  that  great  compassion,  of 
which  we  have  watched  the  beginnings ;  and  the 
other  is  the  stern  religious  desire  for  the  subordi- 
nation of  earthly  passion  and  of  personal  earthly 
joys.  Either  of  these  tendencies  is  imperfect  alone. 
The  purely  humanitarian  inspiration  of  the  first 
too  often,  as  experience  shows,  proves  unstable. 
The  purely  ascetic  inspiration  of  the  other  makes 
too  often  for  self-centred  morbidness  and  sterile 
spiritual  pride.  United,  they  become  a  power. 
Silently,  unobtrusively,  in  many  a  crowded  centre 
of  wretched,  suffering,  sinning  humanity,  men  and 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  315 

women,  clergy  and  laity,  swayed  by  the  double 
force  of  these  two  impulses,  are  bearing  their  de- 
voted witness,  and  finding  the  world  well  lost  for 
the  privilege  of  following  directly  in  the  steps  of 
their  Master.  Sometimes,  to  these  two  inspirations 
from  above  and  from  around  is  added  that  intel- 
lectual desire  to  know,  that  enthusiasm  for  under- 
standing, for  interpreting  our  modern  situation, 
which  we  have  seen  developing,  quite  apart  from 
sentiment,  all  through  the  modern  years.  When 
this  inspiration  comes  to  supplement  the  other  in- 
spirations, human  and  religious,  the  resultant  type 
is  strong  indeed.  For  then  it  is  clearly  seen  that 
not  rescue  work  alone,  not  alone  the  task  of  bind- 
ing up  the  broken-hearted  and  the  broken-bodied, 
is  incumbent  upon  Christianity ;  but  that  the  reli- 
gion of  Christ  must  undertake  constructive  work  as 
well,  and,  however  it  shrink  from  the  strenuous  and 
perplexing  labor,  must  find  the  way  to  help  society 
to  realize  higher,  purer,  juster  conditions  than  have 
yet  been  known,  and  to  translate  into  fact  the 
petitions  of  the  divine  prayer :  "  Thy  Kingdom 
come,  thy  Will  be  done,  on  earth." 

In  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  a  movement  such 
as  is  springing  up  in  modern  Christianity  cannot 
find  much  literary  expression.  Newman,  Maurice, 
Kingsley,  the  protagonists  of  the  spiritual  life  in 
modern  England,  are  also  notable  figures  in  Eng- 
lish letters.  The  more  practical  claims  of  our  own 
day  call  more  exclusively  for  eloquence  of  deeds ; 
and  the  literary  accompaniment  of  the  social  pas- 
sion in  the  modern  Church  will  probably  be  as 


316  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

incidental  as  the  fragments  of  expression  which 
have  been  bequeathed  to  us  by  the  Franciscan 
movement.  Yet  St.  Francis'  Canticle  of  the  Sun 
is  as  precious  a  possession  to  poetry  as  it  is  to  reli- 
gion ;  and  in  like  manner,  some  of  the  utterances  of 
the  new  perception  of  Christian  duty,  which  come 
to  us  from  day  to  day,  are  full  of  that  sincerity 
of  feeling,  that  incisive  courage,  that  undertone  of 
pleading,  which  make  writing  beautiful  as  well  as 
true.  There  are  sermons  by  Canon  Gore  and 
Canon  Scott  Holland,  there  are  phrases  and  para- 
graphs in  the  tracts  of  the  society  which  has  done 
most  to  foster  the  social  principle  in  the  English 
Church,  The  Christian  Social  Union,  which  linger 
in  the  memory  with  the  noblest  words  of  Ruskin  :  — 
"  Jesus  Christ  is  the  same  yesterday  to-day  and 
forever.  The  claim  which  He  made  on  the  con- 
temporaries of  his  life  on  earth  is  the  claim  which 
He  makes  on  his  disciples  to-day.  Many  will  come 
to  Him  at  the  last  day  —  so  we  cannot  but  para- 
phrase his  own  words  —  with  manifold  pleas  and 
excuse  derived  from  the  maxims  of  what  is  called 
the  Christian  world  :  '  Lord,  we  never  denied  the 
Christian  creed ;  nay,  we  had  a  zeal  for  orthodoxy, 
for  churchmanship,  for  Bible  distribution,  but  of 
course  in  our  business  we  did  as  every  one  else 
did:  we  sold  in  the  dearest  and  bought  in  the 
cheapest  market ;  we  did  not,  of  course  we  did  not, 
entertain  any  other  consideration  when  we  were 
investing  our  money,  except  whether  the  invest- 
ments were  safe  ;  we  never  imagined  that  we  could 
love  our  neighbors  as  ourselves  in  the  competition 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND  317 

of  business,  or  that  we  could  carry  into  commer- 
cial transactions  the  sort  of  strict  righteousness 
that  we  knew  to  be  obligatory  in  private  life. 
Lord,  in  all  these  matters  we  went  by  commonly 
accepted  standards  ;  we  never  thought  much  about 
Christianity  as  a  brotherhood.'  Then  will  He  pro- 
test unto  them ;  '  Did  I  not  say  to  thee,  in  that 
written  word  wherein  thou  didst  profess  to  have 
eternal  life :  A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the 
abundance  of  things  that  he  possesseth?  Did 
not  I  warn  thee :  How  hardly  shall  they  who  have 
riches  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God?  Did  I 
not  bid  thee  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his 
righteousness  ?  Did  I  not  tell  thee  that  except  a 
man  in  spirit  and  will,  at  least,  forsook  all  that  he 
had,  unless  he  took  up  his  cross  and  followed  Me, 
he  could  not  be  my  disciple  ?  Not  every  one  that 
saith  unto  Me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  he  that  doeth,  that  hath 
done,  the  "Will  of  my  Father.' 

"  Brethren,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  that  you 
cannot  be  Christians  by  mere  tradition  or  mere 
respectability.  You  will  have  to  choose  to  be 
Christians."  l 

In  words  like  these,  we  hear  the  echo  of  the  old 
cry  of  Langland,  but  enlightened  and  assured. 
Put  them  beside  the  utterances  of  eighteenth  cen- 
tury divinity,  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that 
a  great  change,  a  great  revival,  is  passing  over 
the  Church.  Christianity  cannot  claim  to  have 

1  Charles  Gore,  "  The  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God,"  Barnpton 

Lectures,  1891. 


318  CONTEMPORARY  ENGLAND 

inaugurated  the  modern  movement  for  social  sal- 
vation. For  a  long  time  its  professors  retarded 
that  movement,  and  religious  thought  has  taken 
well-nigh  a  century  to  awaken  to  the  real  situa- 
tion. Yet  however  slow  has  been  the  awakening 
of  the  Church,  in  the  grace  of  God  there  lies 
another  opportunity  before  her.  She  is  taking 
her  place  at  last.  No  one,  looking  at  the  world 
to-day,  can  fail  to  see  that  the  social  energy  of 
Christians  in  every  communion,  and  indeed  quite 
apart  from  the  visible  Church,  is  as  notable  a 
factor  in  the  situation  as  the  crystallizing  of  the 
intellectual  issue  around  the  socialist  position,  or 
the  practical  growth  of  a  new  fellowship,  disre- 
garding class  lines.  Doubtless  there  will  continue 
to  be  many  people  who  claim  the  consolations  with- 
out sharing  the  sacrifices  of  Christianity ;  doubt- 
less the  great  world  will  proceed  on  its  selfish  way. 
Yet  perhaps  it  is  no  dream  that  the  long  separation 
between  democracy  and  Christianity  draws  to  a 
close,  and  that  as  the  slow  years  pass  by,  the  love 
of  God  and  man  may  find,  in  their  sacramental 
union,  freedom  for  more  perfect  collective  expres- 
sion than  has  ever  yet  been  seen  on  earth. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ACHILLES,  2, 199. 

Adamite,  153. 

Adamuaii,  11. 

Addison,  Joseph,  89,  90,  95,  99. 

yKiir.-is,   I '.ill. 

Alexandria,  28. 
Alps,  239. 
Altruism,  186. 

America,  5,  72,  85,  145,  172,  198-211, 
227,  244,  279. 

American  (noun),  G9,  106,  202. 
Americans,  207,  222,  240,  295. 
Anarchy,  16,  235,  254,  265,  270,  272. 
Auglo-Saxon  Race,  47. 

Anglo-Saxons,  23, 121. 
Anne,  Queen,  90, 103,  135. 
Anti-Corn-Law  League,  157. 
Antwerp,  53. 
Arabia,  199. 
Arbuthuot,  John,  89. 
Aristocracy,  33, 137,  146,  244,  248, 251, 
254,  255,  258,  259,  273,  284. 
British,  191,  194,  216,  263,  294. 
Unworking,  159. 

Aristocratic  character  of    Eliza- 
bethan literature,  83. 
Aristocratic  ideal,  284. 
Aristocratic  theory,  248. 
Primitive  people,  aristocratic,  7. 
Aristotle,  42. 
Armenians,  210. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  49,  90,  122,  123, 
155,  158,  160,  169-173,  185,  200,  207, 
233-242,  251-259,  262,  267,  270-274, 
277,  307. 

Works  quoted  from  or  mentioned, 
prose :  Culture  and  Anarchy,  170, 
171,  173,  235,  238,  241,  253,  255,256 ; 
chapter  on  Our  Liberal  Practition- 
ers, 170 ;  chapter  on  Sweetness  and 
Light,  253,  256;  Essay  on  Demo- 
cracy, 254-257, 270 ;  Essay  on  Equal- 
ity, 174,  255,  257;  Ecce  Convertimur 
ad  Gentes,  259,  272. 

Poems :  Obermann  Once  More, 
240;  Stanzas  in  Memory  of  the 
Author  of  Obermann,  170. 

Epithets  mentioned  :  Barbarians, 
160,   252;  Philistia,   160,   193;  Phi- 
listines,  160,  165,  236,  252;  Popu- 
lace, 160,  252. 
Aryan,  214. 

Asceticism,  43,  62,  221,  228,  309. 
As.sisi,  14. 
Athens,  257. 

Athenian  (noun),  136. 


Atlantic  (ocean),  198,  209,  245. 
Atterbury,  Francis,  89. 
Augustine,  St.,  7. 
Austen,  Jane,  130,  186. 
Authority,  35,  261-275,  282,  283,  292, 
308.     ' 

BACON,  FBANCIS,  83,  104. 
Ball,  John,  22.    (See  MOBBIS.) 
Barrie,  J.  M.,  196. 
Bastille,  The,  174. 
Bede,  The  Venerable,  8,  9. 

Works  quoted  from  :  Ecclesiasti- 
cal History,  9 ;    Lives  of  the  Holy 
Abbots,  9. 
Belgium,  227. 
Bellamy,  Edward,  CO-62. 

Works  mentioned  :  Looking  Back- 
ward, 61  ;  Equality,  61. 
Beowulf,  7, 10. 

Place  mentioned  :  Heorot  Hall,  7. 
Berlin,  144. 

Besant,  Sir  Walter,  187,  192,  2f>8,  299. 
Works  mentioned  :  All  Sorts  and 
Conditions  of  Men,  298 ;  Children  of 
Gibeon,  192,  298. 

Characters    mentioned :    Angela, 
298 ;  Valentine,  187,  298. 
Bethlehem,  42. 
Birmingham,  143. 
Biscop,  Benedict,  9. 
Black  Death,  The,  20. 
Blatchford,  Robert,  302,  303. 

Work  discussed :  Merrie  England, 
302. 

Boards  of  Arbitration,  277. 
Bohemia  (literary),  19,  133,  193. 

Bohemian  (noun),  187. 
Bohemians  (native),  210. 
Borgias,  The,  47. 
Botticelli,  Sandro,  47. 
Bourgeoisie,  252,  261. 

Bourgeois,   176;    Bourgeois  soci- 
ety, 185. 
Breton,  Nicholas,  81. 

Poem    quoted    from :    Passionate 
Pilgrim,  81. 

Character  mentioned  :  Aglaia,  81. 
Britain,  Great,  7. 
Britisli  Isles,  13. 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  195. 

Works    mentioned :    Jane  Eyre, 
189  ;  Shirley,  195. 

Character-mentioned :  Rochester, 
189. 
Brook  Farm,  201. 


322 


INDEX 


Broome,  Richard,  82. 

Work  mentioned  :  Merry  Beggars, 
82. 
Brotherhood,  13,  21,  113,  178,  293  ;  of 

man,  311. 

Browning,  Robert,  44,  157,  193. 
Poem  mentioned :  Saul,  44. 
Bull,  John,  262. 
Bulwer-Lytton  (Sir  Edward  George), 

189,  195. 
Bunyan,  John,  26,  30,  87-89. 

Work  mentioned :  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress, 26. 

Characters  mentioned :  Christian, 
87,  105  ;  Christiana,  88. 

Places:  City  of  Destruction,   87, 
105 ;  Vanity  Fair,  87,  88. 
Burke,  Edmund,  92. 
Burns,  Robert,  10,  82,  1%,  200. 
Byron,   Lord  (George  Gordon),   118, 
227. 

CAIXE,  HALL.  279. 

Work  mentioned :  The  Christian, 
279. 

Canterbury,  28. 

Cape  Horn,  245. 

Captains  of  Industry,  216,  223,  266. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  25,  26,  90,  104,  122, 
123,  125, 141, 142,  144,  14G,  148-159, 
161-163,  165,  170-173,  212-216,  217, 
218,  223,  234,  237,  241,  245-249,  251, 
252,  262-267,  269-271,  274,  277,  278, 
281,  295,  309,  313. 

Works  mentioned  and  discussed  : 
French  Revolution,  122,  245;  Lat- 
ter-Day Pamphlets,  173,  245,  268 ; 
Essay  on  Chartism,  125. 

The  Present  Time,  173,  245,  266, 
268 ;  Past  and  Present,  159,  262, 265 ; 
Aristocracies,  246  ;  Democracy,  163, 
216;  Helotage,152, 153;  The  Landed, 
159;  Morrison's  Pill  Hypothesis, 
215  ;  Unworking  Aristocracy,  159  ; 
Sartor  Resartus,  104,  120,  142, 143- 
156, 157, 161, 173, 235 ;  Organic  Fila- 
ments, 156 ;  Signs  of  the  Times,  161 , 
281. 

Character  mentioned :  Teufels- 
drockh,  147-149,  153,  154,  247. 

Place  mentioned :  Weissnichtwo, 
148. 

Catherine,  Queen  of  Henry  VIII. ,  48. 

Catholic :  Ascetic  Catholic  impulse, 
50  ;  Civilization,  71 ;  Conception  of 
the  Church,  34;  Faith,  48;  ideal, 
72  ;  impulse,  50  ;  martyr,  78  ;  pil- 
grimage, 26 ;  reaction,  307. 

Cato,  the  Censor,  62, 112. 

Celt  (noun),  10. 

Celtic  Christians,  14 ;  missiona- 
ries, 7;  tradition,  11  ;  type,  24. 

Charles  X.,  146. 

Chartism,  125,  158,  163,  176,  310. 
Chartist  Movement,  196,  310. 


Chateaubriand,    Francois    Rene'    Au- 

guste,  227. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  16,  21,  23,  25,  30, 

31. 

Poem     mentioned :     Canterbury 

Tales,  21. 
Characters    mentioned :    Knight, 

31  ;     Miller,     16 ;     Pardoner,     30 ; 

Ploughman,  16 ;  Reeve,  16 ;  Wife  of 

Bath,  16. 
Christ,  21,  23,  28,  36,  37,  39,  40,  43, 

44,  45,  56,  57,  78,  79, 92, 93, 112.  244, 

313-316. 

Christendom,  92,  198. 
Christianity,  7,  8,  10,  13,  14.  21,  33, 

34,  41,  44,  78, 92,  112,  116,  117,  1%, 

305,  306,  310,  311, 313,  315,  317,  318. 
Christians,  57,  317,  318. 

Christian  (noun),  112,  281. 
Christian  Social  Union,  316. 
Church,  10,  13,  14,  17,  19,  21,  34,  37, 
38,  45,  48,  79,  92,  93,  176,  282,  305, 

306,  307,  310,  312-315,  317,  318. 
Anglican,  80,  86,  92,  93,  112,  309; 

Anglo-Saxon,  7;  Catholic,  71,  78, 
307;  Christian,  116,  117,  280; 
Church  of  Christ,  7 ;  Church  of 
God,  37;  Early,  88;  English,  316; 
Established,  186;  Gallican,  310; 
Holy,  8,  34 ;  Modern,  196 ;  Roman, 
80. 

City  of  Friends,  201. 

"  Civilization  :  Its  Cause  and  Cure," 
226. 

Clarke,  Samuel,  89,  94,  95. 

Works  mentioned  :  Sermons,  94 ; 
Of  the  Wisdom  of  Being'  Religious, 
94. 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  200,  213,  242. 

Poem  mentioned  :  Bothie  of  To- 
ber-na-Vuolich,  213. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  144, 146. 

Poems  mentioned  :  Lyrical  Bal- 
lads, 144. 

Colet,  John,  47,  67. 

Collins,  Wilkie,  189. 

Collins,  William,  95. 

Columba,  St.,  11. 

Commonwealth,  89,  92,  106. 
Commonweal,  87 

Commonwealth  of  Utopia,  60,  66, 
68. 

"  Ideal  Commonwealths  "  (quot- 
ed), 53,  56-58,  64,  66,  72,  74,  75. 

Communism,  79,  84,  286. 

Christian  Communism,  14 ;  Chris- 
tian Community  Life,  88  ;  Commu- 
nal Life,  71  ;  Communist  (noun), 
270,  290;  Communistic  ideal,  61, 
78 ;  Communistic  regulations  of 
Plato,  79 ;  Communistic  schemes, 
38;  Communistic  state,  GO;  The 
French  Coniimme,  'J34. 

Competition,  US,  17G,  183,  212,   221, 
253,  2G1,  266,  270,  275,  316. 


INDEX 


323 


Competitive  civilization,  69 ;  forces, 
209  ;  system,  173,  212,  281. 

Cougreve,  William,  89. 

Conservatism,  Latin,  52. 

Constantine,  34. 

Constantinople,  52. 

Constitution,  American,  210. 

Continent,  The,  146,  305. 

Cooper,  James  Fenirnore,  200. 

Cooperation,  187,  270,  28G,  300. 

Cooperative  industries,  312 ; 
movement,  2GC ;  organization,  286. 

County  Councils,  277. 

Court  of  Chancery,  131. 

Cowper,  William,  95. 

Craigenputtock,  153. 

Cuthbert,  St.,  10. 

DANTE  (ALIOHIBKI),  2,  34,  43,  52,  263. 
Poem   mentioned :    Divina  Corn- 
media,  263 ;  Inferno,  34. 

Character  mentioned  :  Frances- 
ca,  2. 

Dark  Ages,  The,  47. 
Darwin,  Charles,  181. 
David  (King),  36. 
Dekker,  Thomas,  82. 

Work  mentioned :  The  Shoe- 
maker's Holiday,  82. 
Democracy,  1,  7,  10,  25,  33,  70,  75,  86, 
90,  92,  113,  120,  136,  142,  146,  170, 
172,  176,  179,  182,  192,  198,  199, 
202-205,  207,  208,  210,  243-260,  261- 
263,  273,  275,  283-285, 288,  292,  293, 
295,  296,  300,  305,  318. 

.Democratic  fellowship,  14  ;  ideal, 
198,  203  ;    institutions,   80  ;    senti- 
ments, 82  ;  State,  282,  285  ;  individ- 
ualist democratic  state,  283. 
Demos,  249. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  119. 
Despotism,  244. 

Dickens,  Charles,  124-126,  128-142, 
157,  158,  160,  183-189,  193,  200,  250, 
251,  279,  298,  299,  305. 

Works  mentioned  :  Bleak  House, 
131  ;  Hard  Times,  126, 134,  186, 250; 
Nicholas  Nickleby,  131 ;  Oliver 
Twist,  124,  130,  299;  Our  Mutual 
Friend,  129. 

Characters  mentioned  :  Agnes 
Wickfield,  157  ;  Mr.  Cheeryble, 
160;  The  Cratchits,  132;  David 
Copperfield,  132,  133  ;  Dick  Swivel- 
ler,  131  ;  Fagin,  161  ;  Mrs.  Gamp, 
161  ;  Mr.  Gradgrind,  160 ;  Mrs. 
Gummidge,  160  ;  Jo,  131 ;  The  Ken- 
wigses,  138  ;  Little  Nell,  131  ;  Lou- 
isa Bounderby,  186  ;  The  Marchion- 
ess, 138  ;  Mealy  Potatoes,  132  ;  Mrs. 
Micawber,  160 ;  The  Micawbers, 
138  ;  Mr.  Murdstone.  160 ;  Newman 
Noggs,  132  ;  Mrs.  Nickleby,  160;  The 
Peggottys,  138 ;  Mr.  Pickwick,  160, 
1C1 ;  Rachel,  134  ;  Sam  Weller,  132  ; 


Sidney  Carton,  140  ;  Sikes,  161 ; 
Smike,  131  ;  Snodgrass,  160  ;  Ste- 
phen Blackpool,  134,  139,  186,  250 ; 
Mr.  Stiggins,  132;  Tiny  Tim,  132; 
Toby  Veck,  139 ;  Tom  Pinch,  131 ; 
Mr.  Tupper,  160. 

Dilettanteism,  159,  185,  188,  215. 
Dilettantes,  160. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  104,  125,  195,  207, 
250,  294. 

Works     mentioned  :    Coningsby, 
195  ;  Sybil,  195,  250. 

Character  mentioned :  Gerard, 
250. 

Divine  Right  of  Kings,  146. 

Donatello,  166. 

Don  Quixote,  269. 

Dostoyevsky,    Fedor,    Mikhailovitch, 
121. 

Drama,  The,  3,  81,  82,  261. 

Jacobean,  90;  Old,  91;  Restora- 
tion, 89. 

Du  Maurier,  George,  277. 

EASTEEWINE,  9. 

Economy,  Political,  276,  290. 

Manchester  school,  233,  Modern 
School  of  Political  Enonomy,  233  ; 
Political  Economists,  60,  233 ;  the 
Old  Economists,  152 ;  Economic 
analysis,  304  ;  convenience,  220 ; 
distress,  224  ;  equality,  258 ;  laws, 
65;  man,  219;  matters,  79;  pro- 
blems, 31,  80  ;  production,  230 ;  pro- 
visions, 55 ;  theories,  171,  232  ; 
thought,  219  ;  wrong,  229 ;  Lang- 
land's  economic  speculation,  30,  35. 
Edinburgh  Review,  161. 
Egfrid,  King,  9. 

Eliot,  George,  125,  133,  180-197,  297, 
305. 

Works  mentioned  :  Adam  Bede, 
183  ;  Daniel  Deronda,  126, 182,  185, 
189,  190,  192,  193  ;  Felix  Holt,  250  ; 
Middlemarch,  185-189  ;  Mill  on  the 
Floss,  183 ;  Romola,  182,  185  ;  Silas 
Marner,  183,  184;  Spanish  Gypsy. 
182. 

Characters  mentioned :  Mr. 
Brooke,  185, 187 ;  The  Brookes,  187  ; 
The  Bulstrodes,  185,  187  ;  Mr.  Bui- 
strode,  185  ;  Mr.  Cadwallader,  186 ; 
The  Cadwalladers,  187  ;  Mr.  Casau- 
bon,  186,  187 ;  The  Chetenhams, 
185,  187  ;  The  Cohens,  193 ;  Daniel 
Deronda,  190-192  ;  Dolly  Winthrop, 
183;  Dorothea  Casaubon,  186,  187, 
190 ;  Mr.  Farebrother,  186  ;  Feath- 
erstone,  185 ;  Gwendolen,  191 ;  Sir 
Hugo  Mallinger,  193 ;  Mrs.  Poyser, 
183 ;  Rosamond  Vincy,  185 ;  Tertius 
Lydgate,  186;  Mrs.  Tulliver,  183; 
The  Vincys,  185;  Will  Ladislaw, 
187. 
Place  mentioned  :  Hall  Farm,  251. 


324 


INDEX 


Elizabeth,  Queen,  80,  83,  89,  98. 

Elysian  Fields,  90. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  145.  198,  199, 
202,  212,  227. 

Essay  mentioned :  The  American 
Scholar,  198,  199. 

Emmaus,  40. 

Empire,  Second,  08. 

England,  5,  7,  20,  22,  23,  25,  27,  38, 
45,  47,  54,  CO,  6C,  71,  73,  80,  86,  87, 
97,  103,  111,  113-115,  117,  121-125, 
129,  130,  136,  143-145,  147,  154,  155, 
157,  159,  160,  162, 164,  165,  170,  171, 
183,  184,  201,  209,  212,  214,  216.  217, 
227,  235,  237,  248,  250,  262,  267,270, 
271,276-318. 

Englishman,   44,     237 ;     English 
Kace,  289. 

Erasmus,  Desiderius,  47,  67,  71. 

Ermonye,  28. 

Etheldrid,  Queen,  8. 

Europe,  14,  16,  121,  146,  154,  162, 172, 
200,  207-210,  244,  246. 

Examiner,  The,  104. 

FABIAN  ESSAYS,  The,  287,  288. 

Fabians,   The,  288,  289;    Fabian 
Society,  286. 

Feudalism,  16,  27, 88,  92, 136, 274, 283. 
Feudal  regime,  295  ;  Feudal  sys- 
tem, 116. 
Fielding,  Henry,  135. 

Character  mentioned :  Tom  Jones, 
138. 
Fletcher,  John,  83. 

Play  mentioned :  "  The  Pilgrim," 
83. 

Character  mentioned  :  Alinda,  83. 
Ford,  Paul  Leicester,  279. 

Book  mentioned :  Peter  Stirling, 
279. 

Fourth  of  July,  246. 
France,  17,  113,  121,  123, 234,  257. 

French,  The,  267 ;  French  law  of 
bequest,    272  ;     French    lilts,    21  ; 
Frenchman,  23 ;  French  wars,  20. 
Francis,  St.,  10,  14,  15,  22,  38,  93,  229, 
316. 

Work  mentioned  :  Canticle  of  the 
Sun,  316  ;  Franciscan  movement,  14, 
315 ;  Franciscan  rule,  15. 
Freedom,  1, 4,  41, 44,  47,  48,  60,  62,  70, 
71,  72,  76,  77,  79,  80,  86,  87,  88,  110, 
111,  114,  118,  119,  120,  124, 125,  156, 
167,  176,  178,  189,  196, 197,  199,  200, 
204-207,  209-212,  242,  254,  256, 257, 
261-264,  285,  291, 293,  294,  297,  302, 
303,  304,  310,  318. 

GARLAND,  HAMLIN,  298. 
Gaskell,  Elizabeth  Cleghorn,  126,  195. 
Work  mentioned :  Mary  Barton, 
126. 

Gay,  John,  82. 
Gentiles,  259. 


Georges,  The  (Hanoverian  Kings),  90. 
Germany,  17,  123,  146,  227. 

Germans,  210. 
Ghirlandajo,  47. 
Giorgione,  104. 
Giotto,  24,  93. 

Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  48,  104. 
Gogol,  Nikolai  Vasilievitch.  121. 
Goliards,  17. 

Goliardic   literature,   19 ;    lyrics, 
17  ;  poetry,  20,  27. 
Golias,  Bishop,  17. 
Gore,  Canon  Charles,  316. 
Gospels,  41,  95,  306,  314. 
Gray,  Thomas,  95. 
Greece,  199,  236. 
Griselda,  Patient,  93. 

HARDY,  THOMAS,  125, 184, 193, 194, 251. 
Works  mentioned  :  Far  From  the 
Madding  Crowd,  194 ;  Jude  the  Ob- 
scure, 194 ;   less  of  the  D'Urber- 
villes,  194  ;  The  Woodlanders,  194. 
Harrison,  Frederick.  181. 
Hauptmann,  Gerhard,  122,  227. 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  201. 

Journal  of,  201. 
Hazlitt,  William,  119. 
Hebraism,  236,  237. 

Hebraic  bent,  236. 
Hebrew  (noun),  102. 

Hebrew    problem,   126 ;    Hebrew 
sympathies,  191. 
Heine,  Heinrich,  236. 
Hellas,  78. 

Hellenism,  78,  236,  237. 
Henry  VIII.,  47,  48,  55. 
Heywood,  Thomas,  82. 

Plays  mentioned  :  Foure  Prentices 
of  London,  82  ;  King  Edward  I V. ,  82. 
Character    mentioned :       Master 
Shore,  82. 

Hoboes,  Thomas,  113. 
Hobson,  J.  A.,  283. 

Work    mentioned :    Problems    of 
Poverty,  283. 

Holland,  Canon  Scott,  316. 
Holy  City,  The,  77,  281. 

Heavenly  City,  The,  77. 
Holy  Writ,  28. 
Hooker,  Richard,  83. 
Howells,  William  Dean,  60,  200,  279. 
Hughes,  Thomas,  310. 
Hugo,  Victor,  121,  146. 

Works  mentioned  :  Hernani,  146  ; 
Les  Miserables,  121. 
Hungarians,  210. 

IBSEN,  HENDBCK,  122. 
Iliad,  7. 

Indies,  West,  54. 

Individualism,   46,   40,   70,   202,    203, 
209,  261-263,  2CC,  274.  1'sl,  2S4,  287. 

Democratic  individualism,  292. 

Individualist  (noun),  204. 


INDEX 


325 


Inglesant,  John,  147. 

International,  The,  158,  192. 

1 1 H  i, -i.  11. 

Ionia,  199. 

Ipswich  Working  Men's  College,  259. 

Ireland,  12,  90-98,  105,  106,  145. 

Irish  (noun),  210. 
Israel,  213. 
Italy,  13,  15,  47,  123,  199. 

Italians,  210. 

JACOBINISM,  70. 
Japanese,  C8. 

Jeremiahs,  the  social,  295. 
Jerusalem,  28,  82. 

Heavenly  Jerusalem,  270. 
Jews,  42,  210. 

Jew  (noun),  191,  192,  294. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  95. 

KEATS,  JOHN,  146. 
Kidd,  Benjamin,  292. 

Work  mentioned:  Social  Evolu- 
tion, 292. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  125,  133,  158,  196, 
197,  298,  310,  311,  315. 

Works  mentioned  :   Alton  Locke, 
125,  196,  250 ;  Yeast,  126,  133,  196. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  298,  299. 

Character  mentioned  :  Badalia 
Herodsfoot,  299. 

LABOR,  9,  21,  31,  38,  39,  54,  55,  64,  65, 
67,  70,  107,  155,  165-167,  201,  219, 
221,  266,  283. 

Labor  agitator,  258  ;  conferences, 
300 ;  laborers,  12,  27,  32,  33,  35,  37- 
39,  46,  49,  77,  107, 134, 166,  221,  226, 
249,  296  ;  laboring  classes,  22,  211, 
301 ;  labor-leader,  250,  301 ;  labor- 
man,  248 ;  labor  movement  stories, 
298 ;  Labor  Press,  151  ;  labor-time, 
221  ;  organization  of  labor,  266, 
269,  283 ;  Son  of  labor,  250. 

Lacordaire,  Jean  Baptiste  Henri,  310. 

Laissez-Faire,  163,  177,  195,  212,  274. 

Lamartine,  Alphonse,  Marie  Louis  de 
Prat  de,  157,  227. 

Lamb,  Charles,  119,  297. 

Lamennais,  HuguesFe'licite'  Robert  de, 
310. 

Lancelot,  Sir,  137. 

Lang,  Andrew,  128. 

Langland,  William,  7,  20-45,  46,  49, 
50,  64,  76,  77,  8G,  90-92,  97, 117, 150, 
155,  229,  289,  291,  296,  305,  317. 

Works  mentioned  :  Do  Well,  Do 
Better,  Do  Best,  21  ;  Vision  of  Piers 
the  Plowman,  20-23,  26,  27,  35,  46, 
49,  78. 

Characters  mentioned  :  Apeward, 
30 ;  Conscience,  37  ;  Cutpurse,  30  ; 
Divine  Forgiveness,  28  ;  Faith,  '36  ; 
Four  Evangelists,  37  ;  Hope,  28 ; 
Hunger,  32  ;  Knight,  31 ;  Lady,  30  ; 


Palmer,  28;  Pardoner,  30;  Piers 
Plowman,  27,  29,  30-37,  76,  78; 
Priest,  35 ;  Reason,  27,  44  ;  Repent- 
ance, 27,  28;  Scripture,  41, 42;  Seven 
Deadly  Sins,  27 ;  St.  John,  37 ;  Truth. 
28-30,  32-36,  296 ;  Wastour,  31. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  208. 

Poem  mentioned :  The  Symphony, 
208. 

Larcom,  Lucy,  207. 

Book  mentioned :  A  New  England 
Girlhood,  207. 

Lazarus,  Emma,  209. 

Sonnet  on  the  Bartholdi  Statue  of 
Liberty,  209. 

Leeds,  143. 

Lestingau,  8. 

Liberalism,  144,  195,  253,  307. 
LibeYalisme,  146. 

Liberty,  52,  71,  80,  93,  120,  122,  176, 
204,  205,  216,  261-264,  273,  275,  285, 
295. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  206,  250,  253. 

Lisbon,  144. 

Litany,  78. 

Literature,  American,  199,  211,  279; 
aristocratic,  16  ;  Augustan,  98,  113  ; 
class,  248  ;  contemporary,  124,  259  ; 
eighteenth  century,  89-91,  131 ; 
Elizabethan,  83;  English,  1,  29,  96, 
148 ;  of  feudalism  and  Renascence, 
88 ;  imaginative,  122  ;  modern,  115, 
117,  155 ;  nineteenth  century,  116  ; 
of  reform,  249 ;  romantic,  146 ;  Scot- 
tish, 196  ;  social,  20,  45,  86, 123, 127, 
152,  198,  300,  305,  306 ;  Victorian, 
215 

Liturgy,  112. 

Locke,  John,  113. 

London,  97,  103,  106,  129,  131,  136, 
158,  184,  191  ;  East,  298. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  198,  200,  201, 
203,  206. 

Works  mentioned :  Biglow  Papers, 
198  ;  Essay  on  Democracy,  206 ;  The 
Independent  in  Politics,  201. 

Ludlow,  J.  M.,  310,  312. 

Lyly,  John,  83. 

Work  mentioned  :  Euphues,  83. 
Characters  mentioned :   Euphues, 
83  ;  Philautus,  83. 

MACAULAY,  THOMAS  BABINGTON,  86, 
143-145,  161,  164,  172,  253. 

Works    mentioned :     History    of 
England,  143 ;   chapter  on  State  of 
England  in  1685,  143. 
Macchiavelli,  Niccolo,  59. 

Work  mentioned  :  The  Prince,  59. 
Macdonald,  George,  125,  196. 

Book    mentioned :     Robert    Fal- 
coner, 196. 
Maclaren,  Ian,  196. 
Madrid,  144. 
Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  227. 


326 


INDEX 


Mallock,   W.  H.,  292,  294. 

Works  mentioned  :  Labor  and  the 
Popular  Welfare,  292  ;  Social  Equal- 
ity, 292  ;  The  Classes  and  the  Masses, 
292. 

Malthus,  Thomas  Robert,  108. 
Malvern  Hills,  64. 
Mammonism,  159, 188. 

Mammon-worshipers,  160. 
Manchester,  143,  144,  164,  176. 
Mandeville,  Sir  John  (pseudo),  51. 
Marius  the  Epicurean,  147. 
Marjorie,  Pet,  128. 
Marks,  of  silver,  17. 
Marx,  Karl,  158,  191. 
Materialism,  63,  142,  171. 
Maurice,  Frederick  Denison,  125,  157, 

158,  181,  244,  310-313,  315. 
Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  158,  247,  250. 
Medicis,  The,  47. 
Meredith,  George,  125,  193,  194. 

Work  mentioned :  Beauchamp's 
Career,  194. 

Character  mentioned :  Nevil  Beau- 
champ,  194. 
Merriman,  Henry  Seton,  279. 

Work    mentioned :     The    Sowers, 
279 
Middie  Ages,  The,  7,  16,  20,  26,  28,  52, 

90,  117,  137,  154,  1C6,  265,  290. 
Middle  Class,  86,  87,  88,  131,  160,  161, 
170,  251,  252,  253,  257,  271. 

Middle  Class  Philistinism,  146. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  157,  180,  272. 
Milton,  John,  87,  88,  269. 
Monasticism,  8,  14. 

Monastic  Communities,  13 ;  life, 
15. 

Monasteries,  8,  9,  10,  14. 
Montalembert,     Charles     Forbes     de 
Tryon,  12,  310. 

Work  mentioned  :  Monks  of  the 
West,  12. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  46-79,  80,  86,  90, 
92,  97,  117,  155,  269,  286,  289,  297, 
305. 

Work  discussed  :  The  Utopia,  46, 
48-50,  53,  59,  60,  62,  63,  68,  70,  72, 
73,  75,  76-78,  80,  289;  Chapter,  "Of 
Their  Trades  and  Manner  of  Life," 
63 ;  Discussion  of  War,  73. 
City  mentioned  :  Amaurot,  68. 
Tribes  mentioned :  Achorians,  52 ; 
Polylerits,  52  ;  Utopians,  52,  53,  63, 
66-72,  78,  155  ;  Zapolets,  52. 

Characters  mentioned :  Peter 
Giles,  53;  Raphael  Hythloday,  50- 
55,  57-60,  73. 

Morris,  William,  49,  60,  61,  62,  225, 
269,  277,  289,  290,  300. 

Works  mentioned  :  Dream  of  John 
Bail,  291 ;  News  from  Nowhere,  61, 
225. 

Character  mentioned  :  John  Ball, 
291. 


Morrison,  Arthur,  298,  299. 

Work  mentioned  :    The  Child  of 
the  Jago,  299. 
Morton,  Cardinal,  48,  54. 
Mysticism,  24,  146,  147,  234,  290. 

NAPOLBON  (BONAPARTE),  203. 
New  England,  145,  200,  204. 
New  Learning,  46,  78. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  181,  210,  253,  307- 
309,  312,  313,  315. 

Sermon  mentioned :  On  the  Dan- 
ger of  Riches,  309. 
New  World,  The,  50,  200. 
New  York,  201. 

East  Side,  70. 

Fifth  Avenue,  70. 
Normans,  23. 

OBEHMANN  (see  SENANCOUKT),  227. 

Odysseus,  199. 

Old  World,  The,  200,  209,  210. 

Optimism,  American,  206. 

Organized  Charities,  277. 

Oriental  type,  24. 

Ovidius,  42. 

Owenites,  157. 

Owini,  8. 

Oxford,  47,  307. 

Oxford  Movement,  157,  253,  306, 
308,309. 

PAGANISM,  10. 
Palestine,  191. 
Paris,  68,  121. 
Parliament,  191. 
Parnassus,  199. 
Patmos,  Seer  of,  77. 
St.  Patrick's  (church),  106. 
Peasants'  Revolt,  22,  44,  291. 
Pennsylvania,  152. 

People,  The,  20,  21,  24,  30,  49,  75,  93, 
131,  138,140,  146;   common,  98;  la- 
boring, 179  ;  plain,  91, 138, 206,  253 ; 
thinking,  180. 
Peter,  St.,  34. 
Phalaris  Bull,  163. 
Philanthropy  32,  234,  276. 

Philanthropic  measures,  256. 
Philanthropists,  167. 
Philanthropist   (noun),    190,    281, 
293,   302;    Swift   a    philanthropist, 
105. 

Philistinism,  146,  253. 
Philistines,  254. 

British  Philistine,  160.     (See  Ar- 
nold.) 
Philosophy,  53,  66. 

Baconian,  143  ;  Clothes-philoso- 
phy, 149  ;  Greek,  51  ;  of  the  Utopi- 
ans, 71. 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  The,  93. 
Plato,  52,  56,  76,  79,  155, 269. 

Republic  of,  78,  79. 
Plutocracy,  136, 142,  205. 


INDEX 


327 


Poles,  210. 

Pope,  Alexander,  89,  95,  99. 

Poem  mentioned:    The   Rape   of 
the  Lock,  99. 
Pre-Raphaelitism,  158. 
Proletariat,  The,  17.  134,  162.  170,  183, 

192,  251. 
Protestantism,  34,  253. 

Protestant  (noun),  86. 

Protestant  clergy,  72. 
Ptolemseus,  42. 
Puritanism,  86,  87,  92,  93,  237. 

Puritans,  87,  90,  307. 

Puritan  (noun),  62,  309. 

Puritan  book,  26 ;  forefathers,  205. 

RADICALISM,  148, 158,  313,  314. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  104. 

Raphael,  47. 

Reade,  Charles,  125,  126,  189,  195. 

Work  mentioned  :  Put  Yourself  in 
His  Place,  126. 

Real  Estates  Intestacy  Bill,  271. 

Realism,  146,  194,  251. 

Reformation,  The,  44,  47,  79. 

Reform  Bill,  The,  157,  253. 

Reform  Club  (of  New  York),  201. 

Renascence,  The,  43,  46,  47, 49, 59,  62, 
76,  79,  88,  90,  116,  117, 155, 166,234. 

Republic,  The  (American),  295. 

Republicanism,  120. 

Republican  (noun),  87. 

Restoration,  The,  89. 

Revolt  of  Three  Days,  The,  163. 

Revolution,  26, 102,"  146,  173,  182,  234. 
American  Revolution,  205  ;  French 
Revolution,  113,  115,  117,  119,  148, 
155,  163,  239,  245,  274,  276;  (of 
1848),  125;  Industrial,  115,  154; 
Political,  118;  Social,  8,  22,  33, 
174;  Spiritual,  8,  33;  Revolution- 
ary struggle,  204. 

Reynard  the  Fox  (animal  epic),  19. 

Characters  mentioned :  Noble, 
the  Lion-King,  19 ;  Isengrin,  19. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  99,  135. 

Characters  mentioned :  Miss  By- 
ron, 129;  Sir  Charles  Grandison, 
137. 

Romanism,  80,  93. 

Romanist  (noun),  86. 

Romanticism,  124,  146,  147,  233. 

Romantic  beauty,  158  ;  Romantic 
inspiration,  191 ;  The  Romantic 
movement,  146,  156 ;  (early),  145 ; 
Romantic  revival,  147 ;  Romantic 
temper,  146 ;  Romantic  tradition, 
234. 

Rome,  28,  34. 
Romans,  17. 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  233. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  70,  113,  153, 
203,  227,  298. 

Ruskin,  John,  32,  60,  122,  123,  158, 
160,  163-168,  170,  217-232,  233,  234, 


237,  245,  248,  249,  251,  262,  269-271, 
274,  277,  290,  305,  311,  313,  316. 

Works  mentioned  or  quoted : 
Fors  Clavigera,  249 ;  Queen  of  the 
Air,  226 ;  Lectures  on  Art,  164 ; 
Modern  Painters,  164,  225,  270; 
Munera  Pulveris,  224,  226 ;  Mystery 
of  Life,  168,  230;  Political  Econ- 
omy of  Art,  224  ;  Seven  Lamps  of 
Architecture,  164 ;  Stones  of  Ven- 
ice, 164  ;  Time  and  Tide,  226 ;  Two 
Paths,  165,  262 ;  Unto  This  Last, 
123,  219,  220,  222,  224. 
Russia,  121,  122,  125,  227. 

Russians,  210. 

SABATIEE,  PAUL,  15. 

Work    mentioned :     Life    of    St. 
Francis,  15. 
Sand,  Georges,  121. 

Works    mentioned :    Le    Compa- 
gnon  du  Tour  de  France,  121 ;  Le 
Meunier  d'Angibault,  121. 
Sans-Culottism,  148. 
Saracens,  42. 
Sarto,  Andrea  del,  166. 
Satan,  18. 
Saxons,  10. 

Saxon  Christians,  14  ;  Saxon  Fore- 
fathers, 23. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  189,  200,  297. 
Senancourt,  Etienne  Pivertde,  239, 240. 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  The,  94,  95. 
Settlements,  Social,  277,  300. 
Shakespeare,  William,  183. 

Plays  mentioned  :  Hamlet,  3, 117 ; 
Lear,  2  ;  Macbeth,  2. 

Characters  mentioned  :  Bottom, 
82;  Dogberry,  82;  Gobbo,  82; 
Quince,  82. 

Quotation,  154. 
Sheffield,  143. 

Shelley,   Percy  Bysshe,  87,  114,  119, 
144,  162,  187,  227,  278. 

Pseudo-Shelley,  120 ;  Shelley-like, 
194. 

Poems  mentioned  :    Hellas,  114 ; 
Ode  to  Liberty,  114. 
Sidney,  Algernon,  92. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  83,  85. 

Work  mentioned :  Arcadia,  81. 
Character  mentioned :  Philoclea, 
81. 
Slavery,  205,  206,  211,  212. 

Anti-slavery  conflict,  205 ;  strug- 
gle,   206;    industrial    slavery,   120, 
211 ;  slavery  of  trade,  211. 
Smithfleld,  80. 

Socialism,  33,  58,  148,  157,   281-284, 
286,  288,  290,  292,  302,  311. 

Christian  socialism,  45,  158,  245, 
310,  311 ;  English,  289 ;  French,  288 ; 
Marxian,  288 ;  founders  of,  311  ; 
socialists,  227,  314;  English  social- 
ists, 288;  French,  148 ;  socialist,  283 ; 


328 


INDEX 


radical  socialist,  300;  radical  and 
revolutionary  socialist,  285 ;  socialist 
hopes,  283  ;  leagues,  290  ;  socialist 
movement,  280  ;  position,  318 ;  spir- 
it, 283 ;  state,  275 ;  student,  17  ;  anti- 
socialist  animus,  '_".''_'  ;  socialistic 
dreams,  63  ;  claims,  287  ;  fellowsliip, 
148 ;  issue,  292  ;  principle,  284  ; 
schemes,  69 ;  society,  63 ;  spirit, 
282  ;  thought,  273 ;  modern  English 
Bocialist,movement,  286 ;  Social  De- 
mocratic Federation,  286 ;  Socialist 
League,  286;  Independent  Labor 
Party,  286. 

Sociology,  280. 

Sociological  investigation,  234. 

Southey,  Robert,  143,  153. 

Spectators,  The,  90,  98,  99,  135. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  181. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  83,  84,  85,  105. 

Poems  mentioned :  Faerie  Queene, 
81,  83,  84,  85,  87;  Shepherd's  Cal- 
endar, 81. 

Characters  mentioned :  Arthur, 
85;  Sir  Artegal,  84,  85,  86;  Giant, 
84,  85 ;  Sir  Guyon,  84  ;  Mammon, 
84 ;  Pastorella,  82  ;  St.  George,  85. 

Stage,  The,  82,  83,  125. 

State,  The,  17,  38,  49,  51,  53,  62,  68, 
77,  79,  155,  265,  267,  271-273,  288, 
292. 

State-action,  270 ;  State  employ- 
ment, 269.  • 

Steele,  Richard,  89,  99. 

St.  Simonians,  .148. 

Stuart,  Charles,  86  (Charles  I),  95. 

Suderrnann,  Hermann,  122. 

Sweat-Shops,  229,  312. 
Sweating  System,  196. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  25,  80-113,  114,  116, 
135,  150,  155, 247,  305. 

Works  mentioned  or  discussed  : 
Drapier's  Letters,  105 ;  Gulliver's 
Travels,  109,  110,  112  ;  Journal  to 
Stella,  103;  Modest  Proposal  for 
Preventing,  etc.,  105,  10G;  Polite 
Conversation,  99,  104. 

Characters  mentioned  :  Gulliver, 
109,  110,  111 ;  Mr.  Neverout,  100, 
101,  102 ;  Miss  Notable,  100,  101 ; 
Lady  Smart,  100,  101 ;  Lord  Spark- 
ish,  100,  102. 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  120. 

TATLEBS,  THE,  90,  98. 

Teniers,  David,  24. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  25,  157. 

Teutonic  Race,  The,  7,  21. 

Teuton  (noun),  25,  250  ;  Teuton 
strain,  23. 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace,  124, 
125,  128-142,  157,  158,  160,  183-187, 
189, 277,  279,  305. 

Works  mentioned :  Henry  Es- 
mond, 135,  139;  Newcomes,  159; 


Pendennis,  141,  159 ;  Vanity  Fair. 
129,  138,  159,  194. 

Characters  mentioned  :  Becky 
Sharp,  101 ;  Blanche  Amory,  157 ; 
Brian  Newcoine,  161 ;  Lady  Claver- 
ing,  161  ;  Miss  Crawley,  161 ;  Ethel 
Newcome,  186 ;  Colonel  Newcoine, 
160 ;  Osborne,  132  ;  Peudennis,  133, 
141,  192 ;  Major  Pendennis,  160  ; 
Sir  Pitt,  161  ;  Mrs.  Rawdon  Crawley 
(Becky  Sharp),  138;  Sedley,  132, 
161 ;  Marquis  of  Steyne,  160  ;  War- 
rington,  133,  141. 

Thames,  The,  41. 

Theresa,  St.,  188. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  198,  200,  227, 
293. 

Tolstoi,  Lyof  Nikolaevitch,  29,  32,  43, 
121, 184, 227. 

Tories,  103,  153,  270. 

Trades-Unionism,  126,  158,  176. 

Transcendentalism,  148. 

Transcendental  movement,  145, 
200  ;  Transcendentalists,  200,  227. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  125,  189. 

Troy  (ancient),  199. 

Tullius,  42.  • 

Turge'uieff,  Ivan  Sergeivitch,  121. 

Turner,  Joseph  Mallord  William,  164. 

Tyler,  Wat,  22. 

ULYSSES,  111. 
Unemployed,  The,  54,  269. 

Unemployment,  163,  212,  221. 
University  Extension,  302. 
Utopia,  44,  62,  109,  118. 

Utopias,  63,  121,  125,  234,  269. 

Utopian  (adj.),  224.   (See  More.) 
Utopus,  71. 

VAUGHAN,  HENRY,  64. 

Poem  quoted  :  Retirement,  64. 

Verga,  Giovanni,  184. 

Vergil,  52. 

Vespucius,  Americus,  51. 

Work  mentioned  :  Voyages,  51 . 

Victoria,  Queen,  124,  294. 

Victorian  Age,  119,  122,  135,  138,  154, 
172,  180,  184,  185,  241,  244,  248,  249, 
251,  254,  263,  274,  276,  281. 

Volsungs,  Story  of,  10. 

Voltaire,  Francois  Marie  Arouet  de, 
113. 

WALSINOHAM,  SIR  FRANCIS,  28. 
War,  Civil,  201,  205,  206,  211,  212. 

Revolutionary  (American),  201. 
Ward,  Mrs.  Humphrey,  187,  277. 

Works  mentioned :  Sir  Georee 
Tressady,  124,  297;  Marcella,  297, 

aw. 

Character  mentioned :  Marcella, 
187. 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  279. 
Wesleyan  Movement,  93. 


INDEX 


329 


Whitman,   Walt,   198,   199,   203,    204, 
227,  285,  2i)4. 

Poems  mentioned  :  By  Blue  Onta- 
rio's Shore,  203 ;  Song  of  the  Expo- 
sition, 199  ;  Song  of  the  Open  Road, 
198. 

Prose  mentioned :  Democratic 
Vistas,  204. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  198,  200. 
Wilkins,  Mary  E.,  279. 

Work  mentioned :  Jerome,  279. 
Wordsworth,  William,  4,  34,  118,  119, 
144,  150,  153,  227,  297. 

Poems  mentioned  :  Excursion, 
297  ;  Lyrical  Ballads,  144  ;  Prelude, 
118. 

Characters     mentioned :     Leech- 
gatherer,  297  ;  Peddler,  297. 
Working  Class,  The,  1G5,  196. 

The  Working  Classes,  20,  161, 178, 
250,  2G5,  29G  ;  The  Working  People, 
33,  36,  39,  69,  75,  166,  167,  248,  251, 
259,  274,  301,  304;  workingmen, 
196  ;  the  workingman,  27,  29,  30,  32, 
37,  280,  297,  303,  312  (British),  249 ; 
workers,  259,  310;  worker,  303. 
The  Workingman  in  Literature. 
Working  people,  embodied  iu  char- 
acter of  Piers  the  Plowman,  appear 
for  the  first  time  as  hero,  27  ;  first 
utterance  of  the  working  man  in 
English  Literature ,  29 ;  Wordsworth, 
first  English  author  whose  people 


worked  with  their  hands  for  a  liv- 
ing, 297  ;  Arnold  turns  to  the  work- 
ers, 259  ;  Merrie  England,  self  ex- 
pression of  the  working  man,  302  ; 
Chartism,  first  revolt  of  the  work- 
ers to  reach  the  consciousness  of 
the  educated  classes,  310  ;  Sartor 
Resartus,  one  of  the  first  books  in 
which  the  modern  workingman  is 
recognized,  150;  Children  of  Gibeon, 
192 ;  Sybil,  250  ;  Hard  Times,  250  ; 
Alton  Locke,  250 ;  Felix  Holt,  250  ; 
wage-earning  class,  250,  302 ;  wage- 
earning  population,  69 ;  wage-earn- 
ers, 166,  220,  294,  302,  312;  modern 
wage-earner,  167 ;  Workiugmen's 
College,  311. 

Wright,  Thomas,  19. 

Work  mentioned  :  History  of  Cari- 
cature and  Grotesque,  19. 

Wycherley,  William,  89. 

Wyckoff ,  Walter,  280. 

Work  mentioned :  The  Workers, 
280. 

Wyclif,  John,  34. 

YONGB,  CHARLOTTE  M.,  157. 

Work    mentioned:     The    Daisy 
Chain,  157. 

ZOLA,  Earn,  121. 

Work  mentioned  :  Germinal,  121. 


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